Seeing My Mother in Me
My mom and I have not always seen eye to eye. It wasn’t until my father passed away five years ago that the Universe made room for us to want to spend more time together.
As much as we didn’t agree on much, when I was growing up I did learn a lot from her. My mother taught me that we don’t have to think the same to enjoy spending time together. She taught me that we don’t have to try to constantly change one another. We can just agree to be different and respect one another for that.
She has always been a free spirit. She is an only child as her brother passed away as an infant and she learned to be independent and do things on her own from a very young age. I learned to be independent because of this.
She has always had a zest for life and been a traveler. She taught me to take chances. She encouraged me to move across the country at eighteen and to see other parts of the world. She taught me how to question everything and not follow the masses and she taught me how to be open-minded and think for myself.
She was always out spoken and would stand up for us as kids if there was a conflict at school. I am now following suit in standing up for my children.
She allowed me to have a horse at a very young age because that was all I wanted and all I talked about. I was a very timid, quiet loner as a child and she understood that a horse may be the one thing that would help me. This was huge because my family had no clue about horses. It worked. Having my own horse at such a young age taught me to work hard for what I want, help around the house in exchange for feed and vet care for my horse, taught me to research to find horse training answers, taught me responsibility (my mom says there was never one day that I had to be reminded to feed my horse and haul bucket after bucket of water to the barn), taught me our friends can be animals and not always people and taught me confidence. I very quickly became very knowledgeable about horses as I had no choice. I had nobody to ask questions to. Everything was done by reading horse books and trial and error.
My mother taught me that I was enough by allowing me to figure these things out on my own. My mother never second guessed anything I did with my horses over the years. She trusted that I would always do the right thing.
Seeing my mother cope after watching her husband, my father, of forty years die in her arms for the last five years in the brave way that she has, taught me that I can get through anything. Anything at all. My mother has taught me to see the positive in everything – even the death of a loved one. She has taught me that to be a survivor; one must go on, and one must not worry about change. We are the only ones who can make the best of it.
