1.

I was around 32 years old the first time I recognized my mother as a fellow woman. Many people have this journey at different times, sometimes it takes tragedy to highlight this very important conversation we should have with ourselves. For me, it was my 32nd birthday. My mother became a woman in my eyes, very clearly and she ceased to be just my mother. The revelations that followed were sublime.

Like, I always wanted to be a mother because of her actually. There was such a romantic aspect to how I looked at her, this was both culturally mandated and biblically affirmed. I honored my mother and who I thought her to be. Of course, as the teenage hormones raged, I went through a phase where I did not like my mother, and I judged every single decision she made. Looking back now, she handled this phase with grace. I mean the woman read my diary and I was saying some pretty mean things about her, and you know what she did, she decided to be an English teacher in that moment. She corrected my grammar but did not cross off any of my curse words – checkmate! That was cold-blooded, I still laugh about that to this day. I have noticed that as I’m healing, I spiritually cover my healing wounds with love and kindness.

2.

I am uncovering what God looks and feels like in woman form. Here is the thought that got me there. When my mother was 32 years old, she was pregnant with me and at that point, she had already had three other children. I had a moment where I pondered, “What could she have been thinking at this point?”.

In contrast, I was single at 32 and had no children. Now prior to this epiphany, I was already sort of humanizing my mother, which was leading up to the “great release”, where I was letting go of all the judgments and pent-up anger I had towards her. Naively, I thought I was walking the journey to forgiving my mother for any and/or every misunderstanding we had, but this was about self-forgiveness. It is always a symbiotic experience.

What started out as a journey of judgment, a journey to release all the ways I did not want to be like my mother turned into a lesson in humility. It turned into a celebration of life, and admiration for a fellow woman. I met my mother that day, I met her with humility, grace and stood with pride in all the ways that I was just like her. whatever else I thought mattered, melted away.

3.

What felt like a constant state of feminine dissonance within me, started to feel like an equilibrium of the feminine divine within. It allowed me to look at myself differently and analyze the judgments I held about myself till I could see myself clearly and this is where my Gogo (grandma) comes in.

My Gogo taught me to live in the space of joyful contradiction and paradox. She taught me with her own life that questioning and wondering are the learner’s way. But in order to have true joy, one must know when to dance and laugh at the questions as well as the answers. My Gogo laughed at just about anything. She would laugh whilst honoring the profundity of a situation in the same breath – it was glorious to watch that kind of balance in action.

Balance, the truest kind of it, isn’t about coming out in the end having all the answers, it is about the true attitude of a learner. That is what helps us see things through. Being open to being surprised by yourself and with life – being willing to look at things differently. Gogo lived like she knew that the countdown clock was ticking, this did not induce fear or anxiety per se, but it promoted agency regarding stewardship.

That’s where I got that whole stewardship perspective from, this woman. I also look to her when a joke seems too expensive and when fear seems too easy to do, she somehow mastered the sweet spot of that, and I think I have found my version of that superpower. Some romanticism is involved when I talk about my grandmother. I have admitted to this in the things I have written about her.A major part of my healing has been seeing the alchemical in the very real journey of us as humans, which includes my Gogo. BUT…

4.

Their humanity was and is magical. What my mother has given me, is the gift of releasing judgment and receiving Grace. As for my grandmother, the gifts she gave me were when she was alive and after she died because she visited me. And by visiting, I mean sometimes when I pray or am in the middle of a lesson, she sends me a song, or a bible verse, or instructions like “Go for a walk” or “Go talk to that person”. That seemingly “passive” voice is almost always accompanied by her boisterous and exuberant laughter, imploring me to infuse more joy and lightness in this quest for healing thyself.

I would find myself laughing and dancing as the medicine needed in that moment. I leaned on moments such as that, as my own power to heal thyself unfurled.Thank you mhamha (mum) and Gogo (grandma), for being my way- showers. I now truly understand that your journey was not meant to be mine and thank God for that right? I used to think that your ways had to make sense to me. But now that I have been bruised a few times, I understand that your life was meant to teach me the core tools I need to see my way over, through, and up this journey of unfurling.