These last few weeks in watching my Mother as she continues to get older, I think about the stages of life. I think about how she did the best she could in raising three children with limited income and education. I watch as this woman who was very smart and well education despite her limitations worked hard to provide for her family. I watched as now she just does not have the kick like she use to in order to get better. Is this her final stage in life? At 96 one would say yes. I was reminded by a good friend last night that death and our living is between us and God. She is so right. The final say so in when and how and where we go is between the person and their higher power.
I cannot will that my Mother will get better. I cannot will that she will get out of bed and go back to the way she was a month ago. That is between her and God. There is nothing I can say or do. I can be there for her and I can listen when she needs someone to listen and I can be the daughter/son she can turn to in order to help her.
I had to learn that I need to stop being willful in this and not want her to get better for my own selfish needs but that if she gets better she gets better.
I look at my own stages in life. Being the little girl I never wanted to be. Going through the stage of drinking and drugging, going through the stage of being a lesbian. Then being a butch lesbian and now being what I always should have been, a transman. I am today comfortable in this stage of life. There is more I want but in due time that will happen. I am free to be who I want to be and that is what I strive for all my life. Today I can take a deep breath and just as I can't be willful of my Mothers health I cannot be willful of my own stages in life. Today we both are where our Higher Power wants us to be.
