Love is the lesson in life

Asking my mother to forgive me for the hurt I caused her is healing me.

Photo of Tennessee by Garrett Sawyers on Unsplash

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There’s a time in life… sometimes quiet, sometimes startling… when you realize time has flown by and you’re not the same person you once were.

And then one day, the soul taps you on the shoulder and whispers…

You’re a wise woman; you are a grandmother now. You are next in line after your mother passes.

I’m lucky to have a legacy of women who came before me and lived into their late 90s, and my grandmother to 101. My mother is now ninety-eight. My grandmother got married a second time at age seventy to a younger man who was sixty-five. She enjoyed almost thirty years of marriage to the love of her life.

“I don’t like hanging around older people,” she told me once. “All they do is complain.”

She and her husband, Ed, took a road trip around the country, and they were six-time Putt-Putt champions and bowled into their nineties.

My mother had her first hole-in-one the week before she turned seventy-six, after playing golf for forty-five years.

I visited my mom in Atlanta last week. My sister, who has overseen her care for a decade, had to move her from her apartment in memory care to the nursing home on another floor. It was a bittersweet visit. I was sad to see her there, sitting in a wheelchair, no longer able to walk.

But we shared many loving moments.

“I love you to the moon and back,” I told her.

She answered, “Love, love, love.”

Five years ago, I asked her to forgive me for the hurt I caused her.

“Yes, of course, she answered. Since that time, we’ve had a lovefest. It’s been the most beautiful experience I’ve had in my life. I’ve healed many old wounds.

I see her with compassion now. She was wounded from her childhood, as we all seem to be. But she did the best she could.

Now I see in my mind’s eye all the things she did for the four of us. My mother was remarkable in taking care of us.

Now, when I think of her, I think of all the good in her. I’ve dropped the old baggage I carried for many decades.

Here’s a recent picture of her.

I will miss her so much when she passes.

The hard part of living is letting go of the people we love. Nothing in this lifetime is permanent.

I love you, Mama.

I love each one of you who is a subscriber to my newsletter. I’m so grateful you are here and read my work.

Love the ones you're with.

XO, Sherold

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