This I believe (a sample Musing)

My love of writing and new love of scrapbooking (aka memory albums) has spawned something I like to call Mommy Musings. My Musings are just random thoughts that I write out every now and then, mostly when I'm overcome with some great emotion or epiphany. I wrote this one several weeks ago, but I think this post is a good forum for it. It was my subconscious reaction to the devastation of Hurrican Katrina. Enjoy....let me know how recent world events have made you feel or react, or point me to a link if you have something similar you'd like to share.
--------------------------------------------------
Mommy Musing - September 12, 2005

I woke up this morning weeping for mothers.

I often have very vivid dreams - mostly nightmares - in which I'm suffering, or someone I love is suffering and I'm faced with heavy, intense emotions - fear, sadness, disappointment, anger. I sometimes think that my subconscious forces me to face the emotions that I don't think I could bare in my waking life. In this morning's dream, there was a terrible, airborne infectious disease spreading rapidly throughout the area, and I was making plans with a small group to escape to an isolated place. Like most dreams, this one came in flashes, disconnected chunks of "thought". At one point, I was packing up a station wagon to drive to safety and I stopped to see my mother. She tried hard to hide her fears and sadness, and kept up such a strong face until just before I left her. Before I got into the car, she held out a beautiful yellow knit sweater for me to take with me. When I was hugging her thanks and goodbye, I could feel exactly what it felt like to hug your mother knowing that it might be the last time you ever saw her, and I was overcome with sadness. I woke myself up weeping.

I tried to go back to sleep, but as I started to slip back into unconsciousness I saw another flash, this one even more vivid, and more like a memory or premonition than a dream. I was putting Adachi and Mizan onto the ledge of an open back van or truck and trying desperately to think of a way to "mark" them, because I knew they were going somewhere without us and I might have trouble identifying them, or worse, might not be able to find them at all. In the 1/2 sleepiness I thought, "What if I cut one of Adachi's locks to take with me, and cut one of mine to give to her, tie it around her wrist maybe...or what if...", but this was just too much. I woke myself up weeping. At that moment, I knew exactly what it would feel like to watch your child leaving, knowing you might never see them again. I felt it for myself, and I felt what they would feel. The fear, the sadness, the confusion about being separated.

And now, I'm overcome by the thought that just a few hundred miles away, in New Orleans, Louisiana, and in other parts of the Gulf Coast this has really happened to someone, many people. Because of the damage and destruction of the most powerful storm in my lifetime, Hurricane Katrina, families have been broken forever. Mothers have had to force themselves away from their children, to ensure their children’s' safety. Parents are looking for their children. Children are walking the streets alone. To think that those feelings I experienced lying in my bed this morning, in the safety of our house, with our 2 precious girls just a few feet away in dry, warm beds are real for someone. Not a dream. A nightmare while they are awake. I can only cry for them.

I believe that we are all connected in this universe and that our actions do not go unanswered, good and bad. I've heard the term epiphany used to describe the feeling of having a very powerful realization. This morning I had several of them back-to-back. I can only write down those that are coming to me now as I'm really waking up. There is a strong, lasting, deep bond between families, and especially between mothers and their children. A bond that is formed the day you find out you're having them, and one that will last until even after the last time you see them. There is a long line of girl children in my family, and since women are prone to form bonds through emotional experiences, I can only guess that that is why I dreamed in the sequence I did this morning - my mother, me, my girls. I also know now that nothing in this life, nothing, is worth hurting or disappointing my daughters. I can be selfish at times, and I can get caught up in distractions - but they are here for good, and deserve only the best of me. Living for them is not a sacrifice, it is why I'm here at all, and I am so thankful to have found that out now instead of never.

For the mothers of Katrina, this is more than a Musing. This is my way of saying, I believe we are connected. The happiness and blessings that I have, I'm sending them your way through the universe. Pain and suffering are only bearable when they can be shared, and I'm willing to take my part to lessen some of yours. Tragedy makes us remember and appreciate and realize and feel, really feel. I'm grateful for this day and for the chance to find out that I really can love completely, and that, in the balance of living every second I'm given to be with my girls and love them properly, and be my best me for them, is a second that someone else may have just lost. I won't waste them.