Women's Empowerment Stories ...

Space and Support to Blossom
~ Karen Godfrey

A grieving mom looks back on how she was unknowingly able to support her daughter’s soul path during her short life.

“Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. … As a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. … The trick was to get past my fears, my ego, and my inadequacies to help them [learn to live as themselves in the world.] …

“Even today, I’m not sure what worked and what didn’t, what was me and what was simply life. …Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be.”

-- Anna Quindlen, from ‘Good-bye Dr. Spock’ in her book, ‘Loud and Clear’

This quote struck a deep, resonant chord with me. I am a mother of three grown children. Laura, my youngest and one and only daughter, died on Feb. 3, 2007 in a car accident. She was only 20. Suffering such a sudden, traumatic and great loss has of course caused me to spend much time reflecting on her short life and our time together.

We were very blessed to have a very deep, profound and enriching mother/daughter relationship. Immediately after her death I received such clarity about her short existence here on earth. There were many times in her life I couldn’t quite understand her choices. Often I even disagreed with her choice.

Somehow I was able to allow her the space to follow her own judgments and decisions. As every mother knows, this is a parent’s most difficult and heart-wrenching task: to stand back and allow your child to make a decision you believe to be a mistake. With grace we survived every one, sometimes with hurt feelings but always with the ability to communicate and agree to disagree with love in our hearts and our smiles. I believe we both had the innate ability to always see the Divine spark in each other’s eyes and we trusted that!

The clarity I received was the realization that somehow she was following her soul path. Many of the choices she made would have been more appropriate for a person well beyond her years in life. I now see her soul knew she was to spend only a short time here on earth. She had to live big in order to live fully during her 20 years.

One of the numerous examples of her choices was connected with her senior prom. I had given her a credit card in my name to use to buy a prom dress. She went shopping with her girlfriends. I allowed her a reasonable amount of money and she returned home with a non-refundable dress costing twice her allowance. Not only was it beyond her budgeted amount, it was a dress that was only appropriate for a 28 year old or so to wear to a cocktail party. Very red, very strappy and very sexy beyond her 18 years. We agreed to disagree and she wore the dress to her senior prom. She pulled it off with the grace and finesse of a woman well beyond her 18 years. I wonder how many 25 or even 28 year old women could have pulled it off with as much grace and finesse as she did.

Looking back now, missing her dearly, I know it was just one small act of her following her own unique soul path. I am ever grateful I had the wherewithal to allow her own essence to blossom fully.

A grieving mom,
Karen Godfrey

karinghands@hotmail.com

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