Blessings

This year has brought me a few unexpected round-a-bouts and turns, my heart has grown and filled with abundance. These events have not necessarily been within me exactly, but all to the people I love. I have had the most privileged experience of being witness to my beloved mother’s road to recovery after having been diagnosed with breast cancer. 

It’s a word no one ever wants to hear. 

So many people I know have had some form of cancer and survived. This is my mothers third time, all unrelated, but this time was different. It felt different. It looked different, and it came to all of us with uncertainty. Knowing how far away I was from her, it left my heart in shattered pieces the day of the news. But that day now seems like months ago, well I guess, it was. 

Right now, I’m going home again, to my own family.  I’m sitting in an airport, waiting for the next plane to come and take me off into the sky, waiting for the cuddles I will receive when I get home, waiting for the rain to ease, waiting for the next moment I will be with my mother again. 

It won’t be long, but it feels a lifetime. 

She has faced this battle as she does with strength and courage. She allows her body to move in a way that lets the flow of the process release within her, allowing healing to commence. I watch on as her bravery shows with every smile she makes, to the people walking by and the lady in the shop. But I know her too well, and see the truth behind her eyes. Her mindset is her biggest strength. It will pull her though any obstacle she faces. She is well, she will be well, and will fully recover – unlike so many. We know that she is blessed. She feels blessed. She is blessed. And she knows this and feels peace within. Another trip to visit her has once again lifted both of our spirits, and I feel better knowing this, as hard as it is to leave. 

And as I sit here, waiting for flights to come in, I watch the 2-year-old run around playing chase with her family in front of me. I think of all the beautiful times I too have had with my family – both my own family, mother, father, brother, cousins aunts and uncles and now the family I have of my own – so many miles away from here. I feel my heart spread across the continent, but that’s ok, I have a heart big enough to spread across the globe. But it doesn’t make the leaving any easier.

I wonder how is it that a heart can be so big and so expansive just like the country I live in. 

Spanning great distances, feeling, longing, loving all at once, to so many, all the while residing in me, where I am right now. And right now I am in an airport.

The little girl fly’s through the air as her father swings her around and tries desperately to distract her from intruding on all the other passengers who too are waiting, but most without 2-year-olds in toe. And I think of all the life she has to live, and how many round-a-bouts and turns she will experience and I pray for her, that her heart grows big, just like mine has had to. To help her endure all the up’s and downs, happiness and pain that will come her way, all the pieces that are life. 

My plane touches down, ready for those to disembark and for me to climb aboard. This time I know, I will be privileged again in a few months time, to witness the joy of my mothers face to see the rest of her family, to celebrate and rejoice in all of her blessings, even though there are so many downs, there are always so many highs as well. Just like this little two-year-old, she had fallen over now and crying. Typical of life. So many high’s and so many lows. All we can do is show up, just like my beautiful mother, be brave, be strong and be courageous and acknowledge all of the many blessings that come our way.