This extraordinarily beautiful post by Karen reminded me of my own mother’s passing. She died alone, in the night, sometime between April 11 and April 12, 1996, so I never know when to observe the anniversary of her death. Every year I think I will just pick a day and stick to it, but I never do.

Has it really been 12 years?

I didn’t really forget this year, but for some reason I did not think to write about her until I read Karen’s post. For the first several years, I wrote poems to mark the anniversary of her death. I avoided the Hallmark section of the drugstore during the dreaded Mother’s Day season. I winced when people talked about their living mothers, either positively or negatively, or even just in neutral passing.

Now her death is a simple fact: not something to avoid any longer, and not something to dwell on.

But yet, there is inside of me a painful longing: it takes all sorts of forms. Sometimes it is sexual or just the need to be tightly held. Sometimes it is in my addictions and compulsions: the craving for chocolate or a cigarette. Sometimes it is simply beyond words — a nameless stabbing in my heart. Deep down, I think, it is the longing for Mother. It is the longing for the Oneness of the womb. Maybe that is why I like to take hot baths so much. Perhaps it reminds me of what it felt like to be in utero, nourished and nurtured and breathed for.

I practice meditation in part so I can remember that Oneness. It is from that remembrance that maybe I can help Sami recall his Oneness with me and all creation. I don’t think I can save him from the primordial longing. Perhaps that is the human condition. The First Noble Truth. But what I do know is that my mother was the only living person I knew who practiced unconditional love. Having had such an experience of love, I walk in this world sure of my essential goodness…even though I have done many “bad” (unskillful) things. Deep down, I know that I am lovable and worthy of love. I want this for Sami, too.

What a tremendous gift she gave. Such love is the ultimate gift: it enriches both the giver and the receiver. All I want to do is practice, practice, practice, so I can can develop a heart of the same quality: a heart full of love that demands nothing, and accepts all, vast as the ocean and sky.