Happy Birthday Alexis!

On May 21st, I made a commitment to myself to explore the unknown of all I think I know about surrender, hope, faith, mystery, loss, God, and the power of love. 

Today, I begin the journey into ‘mystery’.

But first, a few final thoughts on faith.

Twenty-nine years ago, on this date, I became a mother for the first time.

I hadn’t planned on being a mother. My then husband and I didn’t really think children fit into our lifestyle and, given I’d had two previous ectopic pregnancies, the doctors didn’t really think it would happen anyway.

Alexis had other ideas.

When evidence of her presence within me was made known, the doctors thought it was another ectopic. They operated only to inform me, I wasn’t pregnant. I had an ovarian cyst.

I was adamant.

I am pregnant.

I insisted they do another pregnancy test. My body didn’t lie. I was pregnant.

Given I’d had major abdominal surgery and my history, the risk of miscarriage was high.

“You need to stay in bed for the first three months,” my doctor told me. He had been away when the drama of the ‘non-pregnancy’ surgery took place and was livid it had happened at all. He was not about to let anything happen to this child.

Neither was I. I willingly went to bed for three months and chose to make it an exploration of the mystery and awe of motherhood, holding firmly to the life growing within my body.

There was one thing that carried me through those months of uncertainty. I hadn’t realized it before until I spent the past few days musing on ‘faith’. To carry my child to full term, I had to have faith. In my doctor. The medical system. They mystery of life and the capacity of my body to nurture and nourish this tiny embryo growing and evolving within me, and the desire of my unborn child to come into the world.

Faith carried us through.

Alexis turns 29 today. It has been faith that has brought us through the ebbs and flows of life in all its mystical and magical intricacies.

Faith that Love truly is the answer.

Faith that Love is all we need to hold onto, to support us, to surround us.

Love is the all of everything we’ve imagined possible. Everything we’ve desired. Everything we’ve known.

Since becoming a mother 29 years ago today, (longer if I count the pregnancy!), I have learned a great deal about surrender, hope, faith, mystery, loss, God, and the power of love. 

My daughters have been my greatest teachers.

Being a mother has been my greatest journey.

For it is in being a mother I have had to learn to surrender, to keep hope alive, to have faith in life itself and to delve fearlessly into its mysteries. Being a mother has taught me and challenged me to surrender to loss, make room for the Divine and to give into the power of love.

There is so much in this world I do not know. So much about life and living and loving fearlessly I have yet to explore.

Before I became a mother, I thought I knew it all. I thought I had life figured out and that once I did become a mother, it would be a pretty clearcut, straight forward journey of raising them and setting them on their path with the prerequisite education, tools and hope chest filled with all they needed to live adult lives in an adult world.

Being a mother has taught me how little I knew then about Love, and how much I don’t need to know about anything else now because, in Love’s light, everything else pales.

My eldest daughter turns 29 today. For 29 years she has taught me the true meaning of surrender, hope, faith, mystery, loss, God, and above all, the power of love.

I am grateful. I am blessed.

Thank you Alexis for being my teacher, my guide, my gift upon this journey.

Much love and Happy Birthday!