Divine Mother's Love

I read 'A Song in the Daylight' by Paullina Simons a few months ago. The conversation below still resonates with me. Somedays as I go about picking up shoes, toys, food and other forgotten must have important items I think I bend, I bend, I bend! The main character is a 40 year old mother of three called Larissa and she recalls a memory of a conversation with her friend Evelyn. I think it speaks volumes for a Mother's Love.


'All I do is pick up after the children. That's what I do. I went to school, grew up, went to college, worked hard, studied hard, dreamed BIG, got a job, briefly, thought much of myself, my talents, my intellectual gifts. I rocked to music, devoured books, baked, painted, danced, smoked. I was so happening. And then I had one child and another and another. And now all I do from morning to night is direct them and clean up their cereal bowls. Go get your glasses. Go get your folder. Go get the letter for me to sign. Go get your shoes. Go get your bag, your lunch money, your coat, your sister, your clarinet. Or; put your shoes away. Put your bowl away. Put the cereal box away. Throw away the wrapper. Close the pantry door. Pick that straw up off the floor. Close the dishwasher. Clothes go in the hamper, not right outside. Fold your couch blanket. Give Riot some water. The tissues from your runny nose, do they belong on the table or in the garbage? The empty cups, the empty boxes, the open jar of peanut butter, when when when will it ever stop? '

Evelyn sat smiling lightly. 'I agree with everything you say, Larissa. My back is bent because there is always something on the floor I need to pick up. I was, I am, just like you. I can't believe I'm doing this instead of reading, or writing, or acting on stage. Do you remember how much I loved the stage? It was my life! And now this is what I do while the kids run off to their friends. I bend down and down.' Evelyn nodded. 'Larissa, I know. But this I also know. When you spend the day, each day and every day, all the time, picking up after other people, and not just other people, but your children, your flesh and blood children, you bend, you sigh, you pick up the toy they dropped, the milk cover, the money they had to take on the trip and didn't, when you do all those things for them, day in and day out, that's when you find the Divine within yourself. You know why? Because it is only the Divine within you that would do it. Do you know what I mean? You do it because that is what Love looks like, bent at the basin on the floor, washing their feet.'


Before you became a mother, did you understand the devotion it would take to be a mother? The tedious hours of work to keep them happy with our reward being seeing them happy.

Mother's Love, Divine Love or is it Divine Mother's Love?

Happy Mother's Day!

Cathryn