After my mother Vella made her transition from lung cancer in October of 2005, I received some wonderful notes from her friends, who lived 2,500 miles away, in Ohio. I carried the cards around in my purse for a couple of years, because these messages were very precious through the long healing from the sense of loss of this woman who was not just my mother, she was also my best friend.
One of the cards was from one of Vella’s dearest of friends, an amazing nurse, now retired, named Vi, for Violet. She sent a card with drawings of colorful, whimsical shoes. Opening it up, the inscription made the point, very nicely, that my mother’s shoes were going to be a large order to fill. This sweet little card couldn’t have been more germane.
I can say that walking in her shoes has been humbling, for she did more to let go of pride and meet everyone, from all walks of life, simply and purely with basic human respect. This woman wasn’t just my mother nurturer, in her later years, she became a leader, whose inspiring words of action were; “nobody’s in charge, and everyone is responsible.” She was one to roll up her sleeves and get to work for whatever event was being offered to the senior community association she headed. She led by example, through serving.
With a simple gift, this friend of my mother’s gave me one of the most powerful offerings possible, to acknowledge what ‘big shoes’ I would need to fill as a final tribute as she acted as the torch bearer, telling me it was now my time.
When someone beloved dies, it is as if we are handed the torch to carry in the relay race of life. Now is our time to do our personal best with the love we have been given. As with all love, it does best when it is recycled, and given over and over again. My mother adored me, and this has upped the ante for me, being a responsible one. Love does this, it calls us to be the very best that we can be, to offer ourselves to the world.
Vi contacted me recently, after all these years, to tell me she found some cards my mother Vella had left with her, and it has felt as though she left a bit of buried treasure that has now been unearthed. When I received the packet of cards that Vella and I had exchanged over the years, my heart was full and of course the tears welled up. As two women with gardening in their blood, the cards’ images were full of flowers and bugs and butterflies.
For me, receiving these cards is a message that even when my walk becomes a wobble from feeling like I’m doing it alone, I have been reminded that I always have a silent angel that continues walking with me with love. I know that she left these cards with Vi so that some time later I would be reminded that I am never alone, her love is with me still. Vella definitely showed me how to begin walking in life, as mothers often do. It has come as a most inspiring message to realize that my mother is still sending her love to help me walk long after she has left the earth.
As an adult woman, of course I have to walk in my own shoes. Yet this passage has shown me that we truly do walk in the ‘shoes’ of those that have gone before us with love. They have been trailblazers in doing the best they could to meet the circumstances of their lives and this impression is palpable and potent. So I am continuing to lay down a path for those who will walk after me, as best as I can, in being passionate for those I love and care for, speaking up about what is right, sharing my truth with as much kindness as I know how to in the moment.
Mother’s Day is near. I hold this day as a blessed time, not only because of Vella, but for all the nurturing that we give to one another. We often talk about what it is to not judge someone, because we don’t know what it is to ‘walk in their shoes.’ To walk in someone else’s shoes calls us to see through the eyes of compassion. As I do my best to walk the path of my mother Vella, I continue to deepen my appreciation for her achievements in life, and the gifts of love I have been given.
Mother’s Day is rightfully a day that acknowledges the legacy of love that is so vital to each one of us in our lives. May each one of us, as we walk each day, share the legacy of love that we are, and honor the legacy of love that we have been given.
