Compassion

The dead are not dead if we have loved them truly. In our own lives we can give them a kind of immortality.
Let us arise and take up the work they have left unfinished.”

– Felix Adler, Immortality

I really wanted to write a new blog post on Mother’s Day, but in typical Leenie fashion, Leenie Brain and Leenie Heart had A LOT going on; it took a few days for me arrive here. This is my third Mother’s Day without Mommy, and honestly, I missed her because she was ALWAYS the one who called first to greet me instead of waiting for me to call her.

Lately I have recognized her continued presence in my life, both in memories and in signs or nudges – things that I may not have noticed a few years ago – but now they feel like the work of an angel, my mom.

In order for me to write about my mom’s love for me, I have to back up to how it began with the loves she had before me. 1. God. She was a woman of faith. 2. Daddy. She was a woman in love who married my dad two weeks after they met and they remained married to each other almost 52 years, parted by death… but love never dies. (I have other blog posts about my parents, including Happiness, Love, and Marriage.)

On 27 April, I posted on my YouTube Channel, a video of my parents, The Secret to a Long Marriage.The video currently has 1,498 views. This feels like a testament to how many people want to know what they gotta do to STAY MARRIED.

My mom’s first bit of advice is “give and take”. She says there’s no secret if you really think about it, and that she and my dad just simply get along. You really should watch the video because even I hear the skepticism in my voice when I ask her how they knew they would get along when they knew each other less than two weeks when they decided to get married. Her response was, “That’s a silly question.” (And yeah, at the time, I didn’t get it, but I understand it now… I understand that you “just know”.)

One of my comments on this picture is, “Holy Matrimony. It’s one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. I’m pretty sure their faith and commitment to their vows to each other was the glue that held them together til parted by death.” I still believe that.

My mom told me that she prayed to meet a good man and get married. She’s not the first or last person to have ever prayed and seek assistance from a higher power in order to find her partner. I used to roll my eyes at the mention of prayer having ANYTHING to do with an outcome, a cause and effect…

The past couple of years I’ve seen how the timing of some things could be Divine Orchestration, but in the last few months, I’ve experienced timing that aligns with some of my intentions/manifestations. Some may call it coincidence. Some may call it the work of a higher power. For me, this has moved into having some influence on manifesting, which to me is the equivalent of prayers being answered.

I know my spiritual life isn’t the way my mom raised me, and for a lot of years, she prayed for me to return to the church. In the final couple of years before her death, my mom stopped hounding me about it. I didn’t feel like she gave up on me but rather she could see what mattered.

Our lives are temporary. It became more important to LOVE EACH OTHER before we ran out of time. It was less important to make me a believer and more important to live lovingly and create memories… love never dies.

My mother’s love is STILL supporting me. Whether or not she’s an angel, whether or not there’s life after death, love never dies.

And I feel grateful that the energy of my mom’s love continues to give me comfort, hope, strength…

I may not have fully appreciated her love all the time, but I feel the blessings of it now.

And NOW is what matters before it becomes a memory. May every memory have LOVE in it.

Luceat lux vestra.