New beginnings after one of the most significant endings in my life, is bittersweet. Not the chocolate chip kind. As a mother to a ten year old boy, and having recently lost my mother unexpectedly, I find myself in the ultimate purgatory. Comparing my mother to my son’s mother. For those of you in the cheap seats, that’s me. Admittedly, I didn’t enjoy an idyllic childhood, and admittedly, I am trying to find some form of redemption in raising my son.

But to what extent does this self analysis add value to our lives? As in other areas of personal growth, let us reach and say that it is the journey, not the destination. It’s a work in progress – an organic process. While this might help me sleep at night, I have to reach higher and set the standard for my son to the level that he deserves. The level that we all deserve. I didn’t have the closest mother-daughter bond with my mom, and all of the yearning for a reconciled story that tied up with a neat little bow was never satisfied. And so the story continues with those of us still here, alive, with the wisdom that floods our hearts when we bury a parent. The realization for me is that the forgiveness I couldn’t give my mother when she was alive, is the forgiveness my son gives to me every day that I am an imperfect parent. It’s the forgiveness I indulge myself when I see that in his eyes.

I have the privilege of not only witnessing, but participating in the growth of this amazing human being who started out perfectly balanced at birth, and slowly succumbed to the hurts of generations past. Knowing he is walking the same path of thorns many of us are born to, I at least have the map to help him navigate as best he can, and the love and support that the prior generation was not fortunate enough to learn how to dispense. As I allow the process of grief take me like a current takes a branch, I feel the slightest healing taking place. For a piece of the forgiveness that my son shows me in our living days, I gave as a final gift to my mother in the form of a card included in her casket. The humbling words: I forgive you.