For me it was a little difficult, being the first Mother’s Day without my Mom.

My lovely children made me breakfast; bagels, lox, cream cheese, and capers, served up with coffee and orange juice. It was superb. Then I got the greatest gift. It is a pretend news article from Annabella’s school, complete with a portrait of me, pictured below.

In it my girl describes me as: brave, beautiful, gifted, loving, kind, sweet, nice, and honest.
Wow. That’s a lot to live up to.

Then she goes on to write the following:
I love my mom because she encourages me to be the bet I can be. She helps my troubles. She never deceives us into not appropriate things. She gives me a life supply of love and hope. She is as pretty as a rainbow. She gave me my voice and my eyes. She heals my wounds and weariness. She is the twinkle in my eye, she is the star in the sky. She gives me great books and food. She inspires me.

Needless to say, I cried. My cup runneth over. How lucky am I?

Unsure how to respond, I said, “Well, I’m pretty sure they aren’t robots, they’d rust.”

If your daughter is ready to talk about feminism, and really it is a conversation best started early, please go here.

When you need a moment to reflect and commiserate on the challenges of raising a daughter or of being a girl, please go here.

Among the positive things I learned at home: Girls can do anything, it doesn’t matter what other people think, do your own thing, march to the beat of your own drum, don’t follow the lemmings off the cliff…

Hopefully I can pass these messages along to both my daughter and my son.

I was maybe a little sheltered or oblivious to feminist issues in general. I remember getting to college and being shocked that there were only philosophical works by women included in the feminism class. That for the most part, to learn about women’s contributions to any field of study, you had to take courses in the Women’s Studies department. Later, getting into the work world and being paid less for the same job, being treated a lesser, suspect, fragile, or unreliable — shocked the living hell out of me.

What decade is this? What century?

And now? With the conservatives trying to take away rights to birth control? In what not-overpopulated world does that even make sense? On what planet-that-is-not-being-decimated is that OK?

So, tell your girls they are smart, capable, invincible, and unique. Inspire them and embrace them. They’ve got battles ahead of them that I thought were won ages ago. Prepare them to be more than decorations on a handbasket quickly going to hell.

This noble boy had a swallow sparrow that eats soap pillows and tomato toes. It goes to a woeful hoedown and it’s horrible with a coach. It was unsuccessful and had to take a vacation. It fell into a hole and began to moan. When it was in motion it was unsure it was whole.

The last part is my favorite. Thanks for brightening my day with your homework.

First, when I got to class, I got a hug from a student who had heard that I was gone because there was a death in my family. It was heartfelt and quite unexpected. Thankfully it didn’t throw me into a tailspin.

Then, as people filed in, some of their faces lit up at seeing me. A few even expressed happiness that I was back.

Before leaving class, a student stopped to tell me that they would be gone for a few weeks for work and that they would miss me and my class. How kind that they included me in that statement.

Finally, in the locker room a student stopped me and said, “Dawn, you are my favorite yoga teacher. I just love your class.” To be honest, I usually keep my head down and mind my own business in the locker room. But that was pretty darn nice. The fact that the student and I were both fully dressed for this interaction was like icing on the cake.

I’m not sharing these things on my blog to brag. Rather, I want to share with you all the good things in my life, along with the challenges. We remember an insult far longer than a compliment. Goodness knows there are moments when I feel a fraud and wonder what in the world possessed me to start teaching yoga.

But then there are these days. Where so much joy and appreciation is reflected back to me that my heart just overflows.

How lucky am I?

I spent time in Pennsylvania over the weekend. I was born there. The house my mom was living in when she passed away is the same one my parents lived in when I was born. Goodness knows we lived in a few in between. Though we moved all across the country, that house, the one that belonged to my Nana and Pop, has definitely been one of the most stable things in my life. Even if it never felt quite like home to me.

Over the weekend, Lannia and I tooled all over in our rental car without a map and without a Garmin. We took care of a myriad of errands. I couldn’t tell you North, South, East or West while standing there spinning in circles. I don’t even really know the names of streets. Yet somehow we always got to our destinations. Like over the years the place imprinted on my mental map, whether I wanted it to or not.

There is something in me that strongly identifies with the mountains, the trees, the rock faces leaking spring water. And below the surface, the coal mines and the boom and bust of it all. The flooding rivers, people who say “Yous” as the plural of you. As in, “Yous be careful out there.” I’m not one of them. I’m not a Pennsylvanian, but I am of them.

Happy Birthday Redding!

You make our lives complete.

It would indeed.

P.S. The house is still full of Easter candy. But candy just doesn’t have the therapeutic qualities of baking cookies, any cookies, from scratch.

In the months running up to my Mom passing, we had many talks about what happens when you die. We talked about lots of different beliefs from around the world. Lots of different people believe many different things, I concluded, but nobody knows for sure.

Yes, I am aware that most people feel they know with 100% certainty. That is their prerogative. I do not deny people of faith their faith.

Annabella, being surrounded by some pretty devout Christians at school, has taken great solace from the fact that Grandma Pam believed in God and believed in Heaven.

Redding, on the other hand, has decided reincarnation is the way to go. He asked me, joyously, “When will Grandma Pam be born again? Will she be a baby? A new baby? Could she be your baby and you could raise her this time and we could have a new little baby?”