My mother and I did not have an ideal or "close" relationship. Over her entire lifetime, our relationship was a work in progress.
However I have come to feel in the years since her death that we were more alike than either of us realized. If we had understood our mutual strangenesses and accepted them earlier we could have been a much greater help and comfort to one another. Since I was wishing for a different mother and she was wishing for a different daughter, we were denied the joy that comes from understanding that we were each exactly what the other needed.
We were each an answer to the other's prayer.
This photo was a day after my son Max was born.
I love that we are in bright sunlight and deep shadow at the same time. And the distortions across our faces connect us. Wonderful. I know that she has forgiven me.
"It is as though you have an eye
That sees all forms
But does not see itself.
This is how your mind is.
Its light penetrates everywhere
And engulfs everything,
So why does it not know itself?"
- Foyan