Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to mom's everywhere, and a special Mother's Day greeting to my three mothers: the gentle, ever-helpful one I faintly remember from the days before I started going to school, the patient, persevering one who still found something to love despite all my teenage and college-inspired idiocies, and the current one, who continues to teach me through example and wise counsel, now passing on her gentleness and patience and wisdom to her grandchildren.

As we look back on the changing roles and evolving partnerships imbedded in the blessing that is the covenant of Family, we can marvel at, and hopefully appreciate, how some things may change, yet some things never seem to change. Whether it was learning to tie one's own shoes for oneself, passing a big test, getting our dream job, finding our dream girl to marry, each accomplishment would be greeted with an affirming smile, and the eternal phrase, "I knew you could do it."

It is forever humbling to realize that no matter how much we learn about ourselves and our growing potential, there remains one far more insightful than ourselves, about ourselves and the extent of that potential... who seems to forever be one step ahead of us, engaged in a challenging dance of contradictions: tugging and waiting, talking and listening, granting a stage to allow the puppet to pull their own strings, and becoming their own puppeteer; giving advice and later asking for it in return, letting the student earn the triumph of becoming a teacher in his turn, and in so doing, establishing a harmonious balance to the experience of being human, indeed the very experience of being alive.
And today is Her day.

Thanks for everything, mom.