My wonderful friend, Dawn, sent me this passage from Luke (12:48, to be exact) when I was going through an exceptionally trying time a few months ago.

"But someone who does not know, and then does something wrong, will be punished only lightly. When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required."

At times, my life can seem a bit overwhelming to me. I think it even seems overwhelming to some of those lurking in my peripheral. Single mom, career, friends, family obligations, writing, yadda yadda. You know what though? 14 years ago I was living at home, barely 18 years old, giving birth to a child that I had no idea how to raise. I was working at Burger King and making $5.45/hr. I had no friends other than those I worked with, I wasn't close to my family and my future was really pretty bleak. In short, I was a hot mess. What I did have was a strong work ethic; that's probably the first thing that really helped me just keep going. Workers, they just do. I tried many different things along the way. Marriage to a man that promised to take care of me, yeah, didn't work out so well, I ended up supporting him. Moving back home? Yeah, didn't work out so well, I ended up just working at Burger King again.

One day when Alivia was about 2 1/2 one of my dearest friends was killed in a motorcycle accident. This friend, God rest his soul, had been haranguing me for many long months to live up to my potential, to dream greater than my current living situation. Losing him, I lost my greatest fan at the time. I nearly lost my mind for a couple of months. I had the attitude that every time I was given a ray of sunshine it was snatched from me. You know what though? I continued to wake up every day, I continued to have this beautiful, bright child next to me every step of the way. Finally, when I'd had enough of Craig's words bouncing around in my head, I applied for a new job at the bank. Which then led to so many more avenues opening up for me!

College followed a few years later, a degree, a couple of advancements at the bank, a job change, a move to the big city. All along the way, so many gifts have been given to me. So many wonderful times where I wanted to lay down and admit defeat, so many times that I was influenced to just keep doing, growing, moving. Now, I'm finding that my circle of influence is growing ever more large. My daughter is a teenager, growing into a woman, she's the greatest example of my influence I could ever attest to. But I also have friends and family, people that I am so close to that loving them almost hurts sometimes. I wake up every day knowing that each time my eyes open it's a new adventure, a new story to tell. New obligations, new responsibilities, yes. But also new experiences, new treasures, new gifts. To whom much is given, much is expected. Indeed. I'm game, how about you?
 

I have this picture of my mother standing on a porch. She can't be more than six years old and is wearing a long sleeve white t-shirt and jeans with red cuffs on them. I actually think it's a black and white photo, but I just *know* in my mind's eye that those cuffs are red. It was taken in Kentucky, on one of her trips to visit family with her mother and father. She looks so . . . child-like and innocent. I've been regaled with many tales of my mother's growing up years. When I was younger those stories came mostly from my grandpa's friends and neighbors. Funny how I don't recall my mother ever telling me stories until I was much older. You, dear reader, may think I have just forgotten, as we tend to do over the years. But I tell you that is not so. My mother just simply did not talk about it. However, through others, I know that my grandmother used to make the best waffles for her own children and the neighborhood kids, she would take them all on adventurous walks and was wildly entertaining. It wasn't until I was much older that I learned about the other side of grandmother; the side that was erratic and selfish, manic even. I know from her own tales that she was given many great memories by my grandmother, but I also know that my mother probably lost her true innocence long before that beautiful picture was taken. At the very least, it was in the making. My mother was the oldest and had two younger brothers to shield and protect.

My mother was raised mostly in Indiana, by two transplants from Kentucky. My grandfather, a Korean War vet, and my grandmother, a hill girl from Kentucky, that once ran with the gypsies. It would be difficult for me to ever fully comprehend the childhood my mother led, but I can tell you that it fully ended on July 4, 1969, when she was 15. That was the day that my grandmother, after many, many years of mental illness, stuck a gun to her heart and shot herself. It wasn't until this summer that my mother ever even admitted that she considered my grandmother selfish for having done so. Always before, there was never an ill word said about her mother. Almost as if she always spoke highly of her mother, she didn't have to face the horrible decimation that was laid upon my mother by her deed. Who wouldn't go through life a little messed up after having witness something that atrocious?

Even though she was arguably messed up, my mother was the epitome of perfection, a veritable "June Cleaver" until I was about 9 years old. The little girl that I was just seemingly woke up one day and life as she knew it was over. No more breakfasts made lovingly every morning, always packed lunches, interesting conversations, visits to my playhouse, swimming trips to the Legion. Gone. Just gone. Set adrift in a river of her own misery, that was my mother. I look back now and realize that it all happened after she had a hysterectomy. The same operation that her own mother had shortly before losing her own mind. As an adult I can objectively reason that in my mother's fear of becoming her mother, she caused it to be so. However, as a young child I just knew that every ounce of security that she so lovingly built was ripped out from beneath me.

Luckily, my mother had more fortitude than her own. She suffered greatly for many years. My teen years were a hell brought on by myself, my inability to deal with my emotions and normal teen stuff, exacerbated by parents that didn't get along, a father that was completely flummoxed that I might have my own ideas, and a mother that was so completely checked out of her own life that all she could do was scream her unhappiness. As parents we pass on so much more than just our genetics. We pass on our fears, shortcomings, miseries, to our children. I struggled for so many years because of this, just as my mother struggled because of her own mother. I couldn't tell you how many times I've been called a bitch by my own mother, a fact that I know shamed her for a long time. I've been hung up on, called names, cussed out, cussed at, been torn down and destroyed over and over. And I did my fair share of dishing it right back (I learned from the best, after all).

Somewhere along the way, I woke up. I woke up one day in the midst of changing my own life and realized that this was one relationship in my life that I had to take a major stock of. I finally came to realize that I had two choices known to me. I could either walk away and never speak to my mother again, or I could put the same effort that I put into changing my relationship with myself to changing the relationship I had with her. And so began the painful process. I really did not tell her of my intentions or this conclusion I had come to until a few years later (actually, just very recently). The one thing I did say was that I would no longer be around for my parent's fights. I would have no more of that nastiness affecting me; I would walk away and leave if it came to that. There were a few times where I packed my daughter up and left or ended a phone call for this very reason. My mother, though, she's a smart one. She was making her own decisions about her own life (isn't it funny how it works out that way?). I know she was watching the changes come over me. The serenity that I was reaching, the self-confidence, the wisdom I was obtaining.

Through this period of time we started having real conversations, conversations that did not involve any acid comments or cutting rejections. We had conversations about the changes I was undertaking and I tried to never place blame. Slowly, I became more comfortable at talking about her failings as a mother, but never approaching it as a blame game. It's because I had finally matured and gained an understanding of her as a person, aside from being my mother. My mother had not had many influences to teach how life was supposed to be, so how could she then teach me? As an adult, it was no longer the fault of my parent's if I couldn't pull myself up and make necessary changes. Sure, I may have been influenced negatively, but that excuse only flies for so long, doesn't it? Every step along the way, every change that I made, it seemed my mother was taking her own steps, making her own changes. Who was this woman in front of me? This woman that I wasn't sure I even loved just a few short years ago? It's like she became a whole new person. I pondered for a very long time whether it was the changes in me that spurred the changes in her, or simply that I was just able to see her differently since I was looking through a different set of eyes. I finally came to the conclusion that it was some of both. What's important is that I grew to love my mother as an adult and I think I love her more fiercely because of this, and there is no greater love than between a parent and a child.

My mother and I are so alike in so many ways. She often tells me how strong I am, and I often think of how strong she must be to have lived through all that she did and to step up and make life changes in her 50's and to shed past behaviors. We are cut from the same gypsy cloth, she and I. Free spirits, fiercely loyal to our friends and family, spiritually in tune with nature and our surroundings, both with dark, tortured souls and yet unable to go through life without a genuine smile on our faces. My mother has gone from one of the worst influences I ever had to one of the greatest joys I could ever know. From probably the person I trusted least to the one person I know I can trust most. It was a great day when I awakened and realized that I had a mother. One whom I can depend on, confide in, a great woman indeed. An example to live by, that you're never too old to change things you don't like about yourself and it's never too late to make amends. Ves'tacha Dya, beloved mother, your wings unfurled have given me the permission to fly. Gestana (thank you).