It's a Miracle! My Mom's Coming To Visit

And I am so excited...

My mom is coming to visit tomorrow, and I am so excited. That sentence, in and of itself, is a miracle.

The miracle is not that she is coming—the miracle is how I feel about it.

It wasn’t that long ago that the mere thought of my mother gave me a clenched feeling in my heart and a physical clenching of my jaw. I didn’t like feeling that way, but it was just the way it was.

When I moved to Florida, I wasn’t speaking much to my family. You could describe the situation as a general rift that had no imagined endpoint and a muddy-looking beginning. I had been hurt, I had been misunderstood, and I had decided that boundaries were in order.

Not cute little boundaries, but prison-level boundaries in the form of tall fences with barbed wire at the top. I stopped caring about my family’s opinions, removed their privilege to vote on my life choices, and denied them any kind of seat at my table.

I threw the entire baby out with the bathwater, lumping all of them into the same bucket of dangerous humans.

I kept my brother. He was the only one I trusted and the only one honest with me.

So I went forth and conquered and was living my very best life. It was a good time in my life and a necessary one. I needed to look forward and only see possibilities without polling the audience of those who knew me since birth and who, therefore, projected their ideas of what was possible for me.

But boundaries, when in physical form, are typically solid, unyielding, and permanent. They degrade over time, I suppose, but once installed, they’re in.

Emotional and relational boundaries, however, are not always meant to stay. We don’t know that when we build them, and that’s probably for the best, or they’d likely be less effective.

I implanted my boundaries without the intention of removing them and was quite pleased with the freedom they allowed. But what I didn’t bargain for was the toll they would take on my heart.

I missed my sister the most.

The tug of my sisterly heart was a loud, insistent knocking on my boundary doors. I yearned for the connection of what once was, and even though my mind was set and my life was churning along, I had no control over the guttural cries and mourning of my soul.

Boundaries do not affect the soul.

The soul is not to be tethered, blocked, or hidden. It sings, it shines, it pulses with its radiant, burning love regardless of the petty, flimsy walls emotionally and mentally erected.

I may have never noticed except for the universe dropping people, moments, and ideas into my path to trigger my soul to speak.

One Sunday on the beach, while coaching boot camp, I looked over to see two sisters, 14 and 16 years old, working out together in the sunshine.

My soul spoke in one big, aching feeling that encompassed a million thoughts.

I had one of those.
A sister.
We were just like that.
Two years apart.
Besties.
Always together.
My forever friend.

My soul let out a wailing moan that pushed past my body and my boundaries, out of my mouth into the ocean wind.

I couldn’t stop it.

And even though my body continued the work at hand, my heart broke.

I hid my face, stifled the sobs, and pushed it down.

I missed her.

And why?

She is here. She is not gone.

I am gone.

She’s so close, and yet my boundaries put her so far away.

Yes, I was hurt. I had been wronged.

But I miss her.

So how do I reconcile hurt and pain with love and connection?

The question churned and distracted me until I decided it was time to just ask.

So I asked.

I went deep into meditation and dove deep into my soul.

I asked what I could do about the puzzle of this ache, this loss, this unsolvable riddle.

The answer, as always, came.

It was a vision, a little movie from my soul to my mind to show me the powerful truth.

The moment I was born, my mother held me.

She looked into my eyes, and there was love.

It was the first moment love passed from her to me physically, and it was so thick, the room was encompassed.

It was the destiny of my soul to arrive on Earth through the angelic woman who carried me, nurtured me, and now held me.

It was all as it should be, and it was love.

And in the room was my two-year-old sister.

She stood on tiptoe and looked at the tiny me.

She felt it.

Love.

She accepted me.

She kissed my cheek.

Love was cemented between the two souls who came here through the same angel.

Love began.

Love never ends.

I came out of meditation with clarity and the unwavering feeling on my physical cheek of having been touched. My hand went to my cheek, and I cried.

I understood.

What has happened between that moment and now is a story—a set of actions and circumstances where humans are humans and do their very best yet fail in the human ways humans fail.

But that love is still just as big.

It’s still indestructible despite my boundaries.

The vision was so real and so completely transformative to my mind, I could no longer think of my sister in the present without feeling overwhelmed with love and joy.

I could no longer think of my mother without my heart singing the word, Mommy!

It was such a beautiful feeling.

I didn’t want to forget or for any of it to end, so I spent as much time as possible in my mind in that room.

As many times as possible, every single day, I put myself back into my mom’s arms and basked in the love I could now summon at the mere thought of it.

I put my hand to my cheek hundreds of times a day to feel where my tiny sister had kissed me when it was fresh and new.

The quest to heal my sisterly heart opened the door to also heal my daughterly heart.

I unlocked hundreds of memories I had not bothered to recall—memories that didn’t support my angry narrative, so they were never important.

I saw my mom singing at the stove, making me tiny banana pancakes, just like I loved.

I saw her rocking me in the chair, singing to me and calling me her little Petunia Pet, praying over me with a fervent energy that brought her to tears.

I saw her sewing dresses for me, singing to herself, immersed in the joy of creating for her little girl.

I saw her cutting my sandwiches into triangles, applying bandages to my little ouches, and tying my hair in perfect pigtails.

Love flowed.

Love overcame.

Love had always been there.

And in the now, that same love repaired me.

Love restored me.

Love flipped the lenses of my mind’s eye to see our stories through the lenses of love.

The hurts that caused the flurry of wall-building, running, blaming, fear, and pain suddenly were not so clearly one-sided.

I saw as they saw.

I saw their hurt.

I saw my part.

And I saw the futility of any of us trying to stay so separate because the love has always been too big to stay sequestered behind any wall.

I saw all the years my mother patiently loved me despite my cold heart, despite my rejection, and despite my disregard for all the love invested and love shared.

A miracle is a shift in perception.

I got my miracle.