In Her Absence: The Story of a Daughter    
As children, when we look into our mother’s eyes, we see our reflection. And in very simple terms, if our mother’s have a sense of self, they let go of us, and let us be who we are. And, we find that our true mirror is well beyond the eyes of our mother. And, our mirror becomes  the eyes of our Creator. But many of us never learn to separate from our mothers and fathers. And they, along with others in our lives, become the mirror where we long to see our reflection. And it is never enough. And, it is always changing, because we are human. The last time I looked into my mother’s eyes and the last time I heard her voice, I saw and heard condemnation. Because of a misunderstanding over money, I heard from my mom in a letter, “You are not good enough. Your father was generous. You will never be like him. You are greedy and selfish. I hope your children end up nothing like you. You are meaningless to me.” I do not embellish. Along with this letter, I received many of the little crafts I had created for my mother over the years, in a UPS box, sent certified; even a little plastic vase that I had made for Mother’s Day, when I was three. All of this took place immediately following the death of my father.  
For a daughter, I looked evil in the eye. And I danced and continue to dance through the darkness, straight to the other side of illusion. I have sweat, screamed, stomped, and spit my anger, my disappointment, my shame.  I have waited in the fallow landscapes, desperate for some new growth. And much to my surprise, God met me there, in the ugliness of it all. I was a self righteous woman, who would only accept her mother if her mother was what she wanted her to be. I had to own and take responsibility for my piece in this mixed up puzzle. And I had to see that my expectations of my mom were completely unrealistic. And I opened my eyes to the lessons my mother has taught me. With God’s grace, I went straight to the heart of compassion, accepting my mother as a woman, who as a child, suffered terrible abuse in her home. And as a result, is frightened and in a great amount of pain; pain that has not one thing to do with me. It was not personal. It was just pain put in the wrong place; put on me, where it did not belong. Eckhart Tolle, author of Stillness Speaks and spiritual teacher, boldly suggests, “ To every accident and disaster there is a potentially redemptive dimension that we are usually unaware of.”14 The redemption came for me, as I found my true identity, or my true belonging. I belong to God. And to no one else.
Self reflection, grace, discipline, all began very young for me. Grace put the drinks down when I was nineteen, and the discipline of prayer kept me sober. Self reflection, in the container of brilliantly humble teachers, brought me to a deep understanding of myself. I realized I did not need to live only on the surface of life to remain safe. It was okay to dive in. Rumi says, “You have walked the ocean’s edge, holding up your robes to keep the dry, You must dive naked under, and deeper, and a thousand times deeper.”15  I have been a deep diver for quite a while now. And life continues to call me deeper and deeper. Do I want to know myself, or do I want to run? The question is posed in every interaction I have, with myself and this world. And what mirror do I want to gaze into to see my reflection? The death of my father and being rejected by my mother, pushed me off the cliff and straight into the arms of the Beloved; who rushes to meet me every time. God parents me now. And from there, I no longer can live in the landscape of right and wrong; black and white. My worlds of light and darkness have collided. Things have melded together. I am learning to live from the interiority of uncertainty, the roiling world of chaos within. And I am finding that when you really look at it, there is order. It’s just not the order I am used to, it is Love’s order. And that smashed any conception of anything I have ever thought of myself and of this world. On the surface, the situation with my mother may look like neglect, poor parenting, the list goes on. But, could it be that my mother is my greatest teacher? Maybe, I have the exact, right mother for what I am to learn on this planet, even though it means we are no longer in relationship? Could it be that in her absence, I am learning how to love in ways I never imagined? I was self righteous after my mother’s rejection. My heart hardened for a while. But slowly, with my eye on the star, my heart began to melt.