Why Death Brings Us Closer To Life and GOD!

1. Popular wisdom has it that we could not truly understand an event which we didn’t personally experience. While this truth is debatable, if one wishes to question it, one could. I belong to the group which is in agreement. The reason is simple: I know first hand  that experiencing something on a personal level made me a  better prepared listener and overall helper.

An example:

As a confused young mother I went to consult a psychologist. The first question I asked him was, “Do you have children?”  At the time, I didn’t have a Master’s in Clinical Psychology and didn’t know  there were many “schools of thought,” one of which was Freudian, and one of its basic principles was for the therapist to act detached, as a “blank wall.” When he refused to answer, I simply stood up and left the room.

Looking back from the perspective of a ature woman who raised two children and chose to try and understand the winding path of the human mind for as long as I could remember, I  admit  my first  “qualifying” question should have been, “Have you helped other parents with this type of issues,” or, ” Have you had specialized training in this area?”

Why didn’t I ask those questions? I could come up with many answers but the truth is parenting two children, twenty two months apart, had nothing to do with logic and a lot to do with emotions and the need to be validated, understood and  reassured that what I FELT was “normal.”  I was not the only  mother to feel  confused after a sleepless night,  that the focus of my universe  shifted from ME to THEM, my daughters, and no matter how much I wished to  shift it back to what it  used to be, that was unlikely to happen! Little by little, with the help of  my mothers’ neighborhood support group, we, together re-balanced our lives to fit the needs of our newly created “Suns” and “Stars.”

If you are still reading this article, you might ask yourself, where is she going with this…the title suggests death bringing us closer to life, not thoughts on motherhood!

If that’s what you are thinking, you couldn’t be closer to the truth, yet further from it!

They say, we are our thoughts but let’s explore what happens when what we take for granted, our capacity to think clearly, vanishes!!!

Close your eyes, take a deep breathe in and an even deeper breathe out and imagine… your brain as a shinny golden bubble, inside,  there are small drawers and by God’s design, we know which drawer to open  when and let out the right letters which instinctively know how to form the right words to take the correct actions at the most appropriate time.

Let’s go back to “what is the connection between motherhood and the title:

I chose the task of mothering as an example, because in my experience, there is no other more complex task in the world and it involves opening and closing so many drawers, I am in awe of all the millions of mothers who manage to juggle lives keeping some kind of order in their unique “bubbles,” as the balance of their Universe changed forever from “ME to THEM!

To accomplish this most difficult task of  motherhood, our brain, our “bubble,” must be kept functional.

Now imagine, without a cautionary sign, the very mechanism which controls our actions,  is shuttered! It happens so fast, you don’t know it is happening. Your “control panel,” doesn’t age slowly, it doesn’t change from gold to silver or cooper or rusts…It’s not one drawer which refuses to open, or some open, some don’t or they open half-way letting out meaningless crumbs.

In that moment, my world exploded! NO brain, no thoughts, only a billion pieces of particles, letters which desperately tried to get together and form words, meaning, to communicate! Instead, they floated around disoriented, unable to make a decision: Which way to look? 

I was having a stroke!

I sat at the edge of reality not certain whether I should look down, in the sewer or up to the stars.

The sewer was closer, I could smell the odor of my own human despair and there was no fear, as I had no thoughts and all was instinct.

I was on the edge and my comfort zone was to let go and dive in the unknown, walk on the shifting sands and sink deeper and deeper until I were no more…

In that crucial moment, it wasn’t my brain, as there was none, that ordered me to look up and  TRUST!

God was not done with me in this dimension, we call life! I didn’t THINK IT, I KNEW IT!

I trusted, looked up where GOD told me to look and live to tell  how it feels to have a stroke and  I ask you to trust in God and always look up!

Author’s note:

This is a true story.

On September 19, 2016 I had a stroke. They say, when it comes to strokes, “TIME IS BRAIN!”  My symptoms started as I was driving down a familiar road and I wondered why, at 2:30 PM on a Monday, there were so many bad drivers on the road. I barely drove myself home but when I tried to get out of the car, I fell. My neighbors and friends ran towards me and I attempted to tell them I needed help but although in my rapidly deteriorating “bubble,” words were forming, they didn’t come out, just sounds of despair.  They were enough and my neighbor took me to the hospital which was 5-minutes away from y home.  The right side of my face was already paralyzed. I WAS BROUGHT INTO THE Emergency Room 20 minutes from when my symptoms started. Because of the timely arrival, the doctors were able to use a clot buster called tPA.  Following the procedure I was in Intensive care for three days. 

ALL MY SYMPTOMS WERE REVERSED!

I hope if you read this article to the end, you see the connection and why

I BELIEVE DEATH BRINGS US CLOSER TO LIFE AND TO GOD!

 

Happy Mother’s Day! Motherhood is a State of Mind!Once a mother, always a mother…

The TV commercials flood us with images of perfect children, grateful husbands offering diamonds and an overall ideal WORLD, making me wonder what’s wrong with the “Picture” in which I live?
Perhaps I’m the only mother whose husband didn’t offer her diamonds, or for that matter flowers. As he told me, times and again, “You are not my mother!”
He is no longer in our lives and my children are grown ups. They live thousands of miles away… My reality is cards, texts, agift cards..
Am I as happy as the mother in a tv commercial? No, but I am grateful they remember me.
Which brings us to the next question: Who must wish a mother, “Happy Mother’s Day,” if anyone?
No one is under a moral obligation, however, it feels good when friends who know how much unconditional LOVE a mother offered, acknowledge it.
The message I hear is, “Good job!” I feel validated and worthy.

As a mother, my message to all the mothers in the WORLD, is:
Once a mother, always a mother, Even if your reality is not a TV commercial!
The reality of motherhood is much more! It is a state of mind!

Motherhood IS FOREVER!!! A Mother’s Day “SPECIAL”

This post is dedicated to motherhood, which is everyday, not only  one day in May.

For the last three weeks or longer,  I have been unable to listen to, or watch anything on the media because of the non-stop ads about Mother’s Day gifts and making it sound as if everyone ever born (one thing is for sure, we ALL came of a Mother) is running to K- Jewelers to buy the “Open-Heart Collection,” or diamonds, or even better chocolates and diamonds. I switched channels but other channels told me stories of discounts for Mom.

My favorite, which made me turn off the TV, not just switch channels: Mom opens a LOT of presents under the watchful gaze of her also perfect daughter. Mom is clearly delighted, yet, she says:”You shouldn’t have!” but everyone knows better! She says that just because, by definition, mothers in TV commercials are PERFECT! That includes humble.

As the mother of two adult daughters raised here, in the world of “every kiss begins with K,” therefore the conclusion is go buy expensive diamonds from K-Jewelers, I have mixed feelings about Mother’s Day and the way we have been programmed to celebrate it, in line with all the other commercial holidays.

I also think of my own mother, no longer on Earth, but whom I will ALWAYS celebrate in MY HEART.

I am thinking back to my childhood, in Romania  where we didn’t have Mother’s Day. So… lacking a randomly (or may be not so randomly) chosen Day to show appreciation for my mother, I showed my love and respect every day, in small but significant ways, as she was aging and fighting cancer.

In my culture, respect for a mother was not a one day deal, but a life-long responsibility, which was not doubted or questioned or commercialized.

We had the knowledge in our DNA that our mothers brought us into this world, nursed us, raised us, were by our side in all major life events, good and bad. Somehow we also knew that our moms were not perfect but they did the best they could with what they had at that moment. We knew somehow without anyone preaching us, what to do to honor our mothers every day when their turn came to be shown love.

Commercials set aside, parties forgotten, please remember every day that without your MOM, there would be NO YOU.

Celebrate motherhood everyday, because  mothers don’t feed us, kiss us and love us one day a year, but every breathing moment for as long as they live!

For me, as I will honor my own mother tomorrow, with the good and the bad times together, I wish all daughters would take a moment to reflect and open their hearts, not to buy from the “open heart collection,” but to simply say:

“I love you Mom!” 

Motherhood… All Kinds Of Mothers. Does Motherhood Ever End?

Motherhood!

How do you define motherhood and once a mother, does it ever end?

Before I became a mother, it was easy to explain the concept: A woman and a man made love and a child  resulted in the process. They raised the child and that was it! Simple!

I grew up in communist Romania and my mother’s greatest fear was that I would get pregnant as a teenager. There would have been nothing worst in her mind that me, still a child, to make the disastrous mistake to allow my hormones, as she put it, to cloud my “judgement.”  As a result, she “kept” my virginity intact by giving me pelvic exams after every date I had as a teenager. For years, I saw those horrific moments, when my privacy was invaded, as a sign of great love and concern. I still do, after all these years, even when I know the manifestation of her love was wrong and scarred me for life.

I really wanted to be a good girl, I didn’t want to disappoint and at eighteen, I secretly married my boyfriend.

The “secret marriage,” was a shock to everyone, but at least,  the pelvic  exams stopped. They were replaced by motherly advice on how not to get pregnant while being sexually active.

I continued to be a good girl and for the following 12 years, never got pregnant. I knew how to “protect myself,” and please my mother, who continued to tell me having kids would be a mistake. She was giving herself and her “wasted” life as an example. I was her only child… what was I doing on this Earth if I have not been welcomed, not even by my mother? A question I am still asking myself…

I never asked those questions at the time. In our “collectivist culture,” as I discovered much later, it was defined, families were close, parents respected and not discarded when one turned eighteen. Truth be told, the parents didn’t discard their children at eighteen either. The age had little to do with the idea that parenting ever stops.

Throughout my married life I continued to call her daily and visit her weekly. When she fell ill, I felt guilty if I didn’t visit her daily. When she died, I felt I lost my best friend. I still do.

However, somehow, her death freed me of the fear of becoming a mother myself.  What if being a mother was that unique experience which fulfills a woman? To experience first hand the miracle of life. ..

A few years later, in a different country, a different culture, which at the time I did not know it was called “individualistic,” I re-married and had two beautiful daughters.

The instincts of being a mother completely took over my life. I breathed, worked, ate, slept  and dreamed for my daughters’ benefits.

I wanted them to have it all. Everything which I didn’t, growing up in Romania: piano lessons, art lessons, gymnastics, dance,  best private schools. I changed professions, so that my children will not take the yellow school bus and I drove them to school daily. Oh, and the pets, which were denied to me in my childhood! MY children were going to have a zoo! And a zoo it was: dogs, cats, reptiles, birds, fish. Even a frog…

I thought I was doing it all right… I knew the saying children learn what they see. I even read in a book that a child associated the smell of alcohol with his mother’s good night kiss, and I stopped drinking, for fear my children would “like alcohol,” because it was associated with my breathe. I wanted their self-esteem to be great and purchased special tapes to boost their egos.

Years went by, they turned 18 and left. They left as far away as I could  have imagined… They no longer needed me!

I love my grown up daughters and miss them every day… It is heartbreaking for me to accept that for over twenty years they were the center of my life and now, that my “motherly duty” is over, they disappeared from my life forever! I am shattered inside and can’t manage to glue back together the broken pieces of my heart.

Once, when I was a child, I played with a type of insects called God’s caws. I put them in a jar and inside I put grass and food for them and observed them. After a while, I noticed tiny white eggs, which after a few days turned into larvas. What shocked me, was that the second the “babies” came to life, the parents died! At the time, that made me sad, but now, I think differently…

Perhaps it would be easier on a human mother’s soul to just die once her children no longer need her…

I envy those insects, for not having to make a choice. God made it for them!

 

 

When Our Biological Clock Goes Tick…Toc… Stupid Happens!

When Our Biological Clock Goes Tick…Toc… Stupid Happens!.

When Our Biological Clock Goes Tick…Toc… Stupid Happens!

The marketing geared towards the single, professional women in their thierties is probably one of the largest and most efficient that there is in the no nonsense world of marketing. And why is that you might ask?
May be because there is an avid market, millions of single, beautiful women who perhaps waited too long for Mr. Perfect and now feared he may not even exist, or “all the good ones were already taken!”

Advances in science made it easier on the aging women and unlike 20 years ago, it is possible now to have a perfectly adorable child in your 40s’ or may be your Mom could be the “oven” at any age?
I don’t know about right now, but 20 years ago, after the love of my life decided to have a child with his secretary and divorce me in a rush, I felt that I had to do something about the situation. Not only was I abandoned in a new environment, a new country, but my thiertiest birthday was approaching fast and there was no way to turn back the clock.
The reality that I had spend my most prolific years trying to not get pregnant, and the second I turned my head, my ex-husband rushed into fatherhood with another woman, a woman I hated and despised, and she was stupid and ugly, hit me in my EGO!
Cosmopolitan Magazine with its stats didn’t help and the long line of failed relationships lasting six months at the most was not encouraging.
I had to set goals, rules, such as, if a relationship was not taking us anywhere, meaning marriage, babies and pets, I had to move on, as the echo of my biological clock was blasting in my ears and uterus.

Just after I broke up a six months relationship with a doctor who already had three kids and wasn’t interested in more, I discovered that he was at the same time involved with his receptionist and surprise! She got pregnant without discussing it first, because it was an accident… and a gentlemen is a gentlemen and he married her. True, his son from his first marriage had a son older than his father’s new baby, but hey, everything goes!

As I was still recovering from the shock of my honesty, I met what seemed to be the perfect life partner. We met at the opening of a restaurant and were introduced by my alcoholic girlfriend and her married (to someone else) boyfriend. I know, it doesn’t sound too respectable, but one works with what one has… at hand!
My new found boyfriend and I hit it immediately, as in we didn’t waste too long and became intimate.
It seemed strange to me that in the middle of a perfect love-making night he was prespiring and HAD to leave… I knew nothing about drugs and withdrawing symptoms.
I even thought it was okay that he didn’t have a serious relationship in ten years and his favorite hang out place was in the Philly’s Red District, at a corner bar.
I so didn’t want to see anything negative that when he finally invited me to his house and declared that he only cleaned twice a year if necessary, I thought that was fixable. I was going to clean and do it all!
Everything was fixable, the bizarre parents, the father drinking starting at Noon and playing solitaire and the mother sipping sherry all day long on a blue couch, my beloved long hair which was cut short to help with his new image of married man.

Did I love him? May be. The truth, as I see it now is that the noise of my biological clock was louder and stronger than any other emotion. I wanted kids, and I wanted them YESTERDAY. I wanted them before my husband’s which was an impossibility: His son was already one year old and I was still in the process of finding the right partner.

We married in April and by mid- February of the following year, a daughter was born: Eva. Because I was 36 years old I had to have an amniosinthesis. The father of the baby to be, was present for a while, then suddenly, the entire medical staff disappeared, while I was hoping for their maximum attention. What happened? I turned my head to only see the father to be, my pride and joy fainted! That was fixable too, I was strong for both of us, and life proved me right. I realy had no choice but to be strong for all of us!
After Eva’s birth, I wasted no time and got pregnant again. 18 month between the two daughters. Natalie, unlike Eva, new from the beginning how to connect to the source of food, meaning my breast.
There is something which may not be described, the feeling that not only my body housed the bodies and souls of these two perfect human beings, but the feeling that they were MY responsibility in the face of God! Upon their birth all other feelings disappeared and they became the LOVES of my life! A love unlike no other!

As time and life will prove, one could love too much, care too much and get hurt… in ways that at this moment I have no words how to describe…but I will… when the time comes!

We met at the opening of a restaurant