Don't Work So Hard

Weekly wisdom to bring you home in 2 minutes, or less.

A SHORT STORY

My Mom passed away ten years ago this week.

I was remarking to a friend last week how, in some ways, I feel more connected to my parents than I ever did, and yet I can feel parts of them slipping away.

In the midst of this tension, one story keeps playing in my head over and over.

Ten years ago, when my Mom was faced with the reality that she wasn’t going to beat cancer, she sat with the silence for a moment and said, “It’s not fair.” To which we all silently nodded.

And then, out of the silence, she said, “I was really looking forward to seeing the new Ghostbusters movie.”

Now, mind you, my Mom wasn’t a jokester by any means. But I take comfort in the way she chose to meet her end with humor, and in the simple words of encouragement she left me with: “Don’t work so hard.”

In the end, maybe she understood something I’m still learning.

Don’t work so hard.

A POEM

“Farewell Letter” by David Whyte

(For All the Mothers Who Have Passed Away)

She wrote me a letter after her death,
and I remember a kind of happy light
as I sat by the rose tree on her old bench by the back door
so surprised to receive it
wondering what she would say
looking up before I could open it
and laughing to myself in silent expectation.

Dear son
it is time for me to leave you
the words you are used to hearing, are no longer mine to give.
You can only hear those words of motherly affection now from your own mouth and only for those who stand motherless before you.

As for me
I must forsake adulthood
and be bound gladly to a new childhood.
You must understand this apprenticeship demands of me an elemental innocence from everything I have ever held in my hands.
I know your generous soul is well able to let me go
You will in the end be happy to know my God was true and that after so many years of loving you so long
I find myself in the wide, infinite mercy of being mothered myself.

P.S. All of your intuitions were true.

Grateful,

Michael