It is understandable to feel lost in life. After all, this is the first time we are living.
Navigating through life is not easy, despite the lack of acknowledgement of this fact. We learn how to move forward, commit mistakes, and improve ourselves as we grow. During this quest to figure out our place in the world, our mothers act as our compass, guiding and teaching us the way of life.
Often, mothers serve as their children’s pillars or even role models. This is a heavy responsibility that they carry. However, sometimes we forget that they’re also just doing their best to find their way through life.
The reality is that being a mother does not have a manual or a book of instructions listed with dos and don’ts that they could turn to for advice, like we do with them, when we are stuck on a problem. Our mothers probably took the role of our guardian figures while still having their uncertainties. The moment they become parents, they are expected to set aside their struggles to become nurturers and providers for their children.
Even with their sacrifices, mothers barely complain. They take on different roles and jobs to support their child, but they do not show any strain on their faces. They do their best to give their children the best of life, mostly at their own expense.
But just as Gresson Peiffer discussed in an excerpt from Sharing My Light, we always have a choice to make the best of every situation, no matter what. We can choose to see the silver lining in things by starting with awareness and acceptance through intuition.
Perhaps that is exactly how mothers navigate their way through life. Taking the challenges with a brave heart and never faltering. Mothers grow to evolve together with their children—something we might have noticed because they always looked like they had everything figured out, to make us feel more assured and safe in life, as the pillars we lean on.
Mothers push forward throughout the long hours of their hardships, the many firsts of being a parent. The first time they spent a sleepless night trying to soothe their crying baby, the first time they learned how to take care of their sick infant in the scary hallways of the hospital, the first time they worried about sending their child to the first day of school, and so much more.
In many of these first times, mothers did their best to seem tough and sure of their actions regardless of how lost and scared they must have felt, too. Seeing them in a different light and perspective as the guardians who take care of and raise us by delving into the hardships makes them more aspiring.
The weight of carrying the responsibility of guiding her children is quite heavier than we must realize.
So this Mother’s Day, it is time to give back and honor the loving women who taught us how to navigate our journeys.
Because in her life, it was her first time living too.
by Michelle Anat