Mothers and Daughters

Detail of Mary Mother of Jesus encaustic wax icon by Judy Vars

Yesterday my second daughter Charmaine and my granddaughter Rhaya left. I’m left feeling a curious blend of emotions Love always, mixed with melancholy, joy mixed with sadness. When I brought my girls into the world, I was still a girl just seventeen. I was inexperienced and relied on my dog-eared copy of Doctor Spock’s child rearing book to guide me. I laugh and call them Spock babies and they say yeah with mock resentment.
On the nursery wall was a plaque I made with the poem by Kahill Gibran from the “Prophet” Children
I read it over again and again and cried each time. Today it comes back to me.

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, “Speak to us of Children,”
And he said: Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness: For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves the bow that is stable.

My Charmaine put herself through college and earned a MBA. She lives life fully and on her terms. She loves to travel and has been all over the world. She overcame thyroid cancer last year. Her strength and will power is an inspiration to everyone she knows. She is a fun person to be around and generous. She will not tolerate negativity or victim thinking...she loves her family and friends deeply but protects herself with a prickly exterior.
Rhaya is the image of her mother in temperament; friendly to everyone, self confident to the extreme, and totally gorgeous. If my children have any faults I cannot see them.
Long ago I concluded that I can’t take too much credit for my children’s successes or even their difficulties like Kahill says they are the living arrows sent forth into the infinite so let your bending in the archers hand be with gladness.
Miss Moo and Rhaya I love you so much more than I could ever express.
MoM and Grandmom