The 'P' Word

I think about my mom every day. Somehow, her presence remains constant in even the most mundane aspects of who I've become. It's as if the presence of those you love transcends beyond what is seen or unseen, and regardless of where it dwells or rests it is a part of you; their presence is simply present.

Growing up, my mom would always tell me how I needed to learn to wait and be the dreaded 'p' word ... patient. If you knew my mother, you would understand the irony of how a sweet, slow-talking southern bell gave birth to such a loud, boisterous child. Perhaps the northeast is to blame for the difference in our temperament, but never-the-less it is to account for how she truly taught me to be patient. 

My mother had the ability to talk. Forever. She stretched out syllabus, elongated sentences and in doing so, had this knack for charming people with her slow, southern twang. And maybe while taking 10 minutes to say hello and 20 minutes to say goodbye is wonderfully charming, it's also wonderfully inconvenient when you have things to do.

More often than not, I found my mothers southern speech and social habits to be inconvenient as I wanted to see it all, do it all and be it all. I was active, passionate and I NEVER wanted to miss out. Needless to say, having a mother who knew everyone, loved everyone and talked to EVERYONE, sometimes interfered with the 'things I had to do.' 

During the nine months that my mother was terminally ill, I learned more about the 'p' word. I watched her battle cancer, fight disease and make her peace with the world that she knew was not her home. Still being the boistrous see-it-do-it-be-it-all child (then teenager) that I was, I had trouble grasping how my mother was still teaching me to be patient during such a traumatic time. She was living the ultimate waiting game, yet somehow, she was joyful.

It was waiting of the worst kind. I had to wait--wait for the school bus pick me up and deliver me to school so I could take my AP classes and act like a normal teenager trying to make it to college. I had to wait--wait for the bell to ring so I could catch a ride to the hospital to help take care of my mom. I had to wait--wait for doctors to tell me what to expect and how to understand the logic of cancer. I had to wait--wait for answers to questions that I knew I would never understand. I had to wait--wait to feel overwhelming emotions that I knew I would always be afraid to process. I had to wait--wait for my mother to get better, only to watch her get worse.

And all the while, my mom was waiting in peace and in grace--she waited for what was unknown with such joy.

But what is joy, anyway? Especially in sickness, in death? What is peace? What is grace? It took me a really long time to understand, or want to understand. How can such things even exist?

Then one day it hit me: maybe patience isn't so much about waiting, as it is about living. I mean, really living.

Maybe, what my mom was trying to teach me through her life and through her death is that patience isn't about being deprived of a quick answer, but rather the act of being blessed with an opportunity to take ones time.

Maybe, patience is our opportunity to find joy in the present--to live our life through unexpected journeys rather than in the predictable rigidity of our own plans.

Maybe, patience isn't a process to grudge through the 'in-between,' but a freedom to explore what we might otherwise overlook.

Let's be real: we all have those days--and sometimes I wake up and wonder what I'm doing, where I'm going or my mission for being where I am and doing what it is that I do. Some days I wish I didn't feel so 'in between'--so listless. But then there's that part of my mother that reminds me that being somewhere 'in between' is a gift, it's a life.

And perhaps it is in those moments that we can learn to live-- that we can learn to tweak our listless tone to the slow, peaceful twang of patience.