Since the start of COVID, I’ve had the intention of coming east to spend time my mom who has been pretty isolated in the age of COVID. While she never wanted me to feel like she needed anything, that was beyond the point. I didn’t need to come east; she’s definitely self-contained and self-sufficient. But I wanted to come and support and be with her. Because I knew how much it would add light and love to her day and in her life. And so, for a while, I planned an experience to come and surprise her for Thanksgiving. It was a pretty elaborate plan, and it involved many different levels of coordination to also to keep it from her as to when I was actually going to come and visit. For example, ways to find out where she was going to be Thanksgiving without having anyone know that I would show up. And through this thoughtful approach, I managed to pull it off and arrived on Thanksgiving Day to her best friend Barbara’s (who I call my aunt) place who upon my arrival opened the door, to find me and my negative COVID test staring them in the face and welcoming them with love.

Once they got over their shock, it was such a beautiful moment. A moment of pure joy. Pure peace and pure love. I had envisioned this moment, but never as powerful as it ended up being.  And what my mom shared with me was that it was “the greatest moment of her life” …because she truly felt seen.

And it is her belief that “being seen, feeling love, and being connected, are what matters most in life.”

Feeling all three together, at the same time, is the highest expression of being. To hear those words from her that she felt this sense of completeness, magic and grace warmed my heart so much.  I am endlessness grateful that I could give her this gift. I knew how important Thanksgiving is to her because of what it represents: love, family and gratitude. And that is why I wanted to be there for her with her. That afternoon we sat and just connected.  We talked about our experiences: what I have been experiencing on the road, going deep on the learnings of life, values and ways of living and parts of each of our journeys. It was a beautiful day and moment. A day I will remember forever and the feeling of love and hope it brought to both my mom and aunt.

And from there, I knew I also wanted to take her on an adventure – an experience out on the road for her to see for herself and to be able to get out of the house a bit (in a safe way).  I wanted to share what the road was like and also a different way of being and connecting. And so, for a week we embarked on a journey, traveling all through upstate New York – to Niagara Falls and Seneca Falls, and the Finger Lakes, and small towns and staying on vineyards and farms and learning about different ways of life.  Being in nature, appreciating the beauty of our surroundings, with no distractions, we were so present with each other.  And through this, we were able to go deeper. I learned many stories that I did not know, particularly about what her upbringing was that greatly influenced who she was. Some of these stories were very profound to me.

First, there was the serendipity of being in Niagara Falls, where she had been 60 years ago with her mother and now could see it through my eyes. This reflection of the memory opened up the conversation around her mother: I shared what I remember about my grandmother and my mother shared more how she interacted with her mother.  I learned about times that she was held back from things and wasn’t supported in her dreams which taught her to be quiet, to not speak out, because when she did, she was told “no” or held back. And that became a theme in my mom’s life, even in her marriage to my father, of feeling that her opinions did not matter or were not respected. And so, she lost her voice (or hid her voice for years) and it caused her to be more insecure, and that in turn caused her to seek love in a different way to feel validated and in a way that her mother had tried to seek it from her. Over time, my mother really learned that she is enough, is worthy, and found self-love, and found her own voice. And as she did that, and became more and more authentic to herself, and her truth, our relationship really started to blossom. Over the years she started feeling more and more safe to open up and really show her full self to me. And this on the road together was no different, so from this space I was able to learn more stories of her experiences. 

Second, was the serendipity of going to Seneca Falls, where she had always wanted to go to because of her passion and advocacy for the women’s movement growing up, and she always wanted to go there with me.  I never knew this and she had never shared that until we were driving there that morning, and there is something to be said about the cosmic nature of the universe that I had randomly picked upstate New York for our travels, and the Finger Lakes area that was bringing us to Seneca Falls without knowing the meaning behind it for her. The reason why she had always wanted to go there with me was because when she was growing up, she had brought her mother to speaking event around the women’s movement, and really wanted to share that with her mother.  It was a different time and generational mentality then, and her mother was not supportive of the activism and didn’t understand my mother’s desire to be part of this movement. And so, it shut my mother off to ever sharing again with her mother something that she was so deeply passionate about. When she became a mother, she vowed that she would be the mother that was always supportive; even if she didn’t align fully to what her children believed, to also be open, compassionate, and seek to understand. Going to Seneca Falls together was symbolic of the mother that she is, as she had become a very supportive and understanding and compassionate mother. Together, we were able to experience this place and the representation of who she is and I was able to share with her my endless gratitude for the type of mother she by telling her in directly.  

It is through showing love and also outwardly sharing appreciation that we connect more deeply.