remembering Mama

Here's what motherhood looks like now, to me:

a beautiful pregnant woman buying shoes for her sleeping boy.

Sunday morning - it rained last night, the garden is damp, the birds are noisy, the lilac is on its way, and my heart is full of the blessings of life. I am thinking of my lovely, loving mother, such a powerful force in my life - hard to believe the space she occupied for so long is empty. Here she is only two months before she died in 2012, meeting her great-grandson, doing a crossword.

I miss you, maman.

Here's a moving and important article about Jean Vanier. My new memoir is partially about my time working at l'Arche in 1979, which changed my life. Many thanks to M. Vanier - and to HIS mother, Madame Vanier, a vital force also.
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/faith-matters/2015/05/07/jean-vaniers-work-with-the-disabled-leads-him-to-a-paradoxical-truth

And now, on this blessed tranquil morning, my first bike ride of the year on the Don Valley Trail. It does not get better than this.

Ten minutes later: Yes, it does get better than this. I looked out at my dead ivy ...

and saw life - tiny green shoots. The ivy is alive! Happy Mother's Day.