Only one level of the challenge today – to show someone love. However, we are challenged to think about how the other feels love, to give in ways that we may be less comfortable with.
This morning I went to visit my mother living in long-term care. She slept for most of the time I was there. But we did, at the prompting of the nursing staff, take a walk up the hall. When she was back in bed I told her I loved her. She answered:
“It is had to accept love when you can’t love yourself.”
I know this has been a particular struggle for Mom for a long time.
I asked, “Why can’t you love yourself?”
Her reply, “Because I’m so useless.”
Why do we believe we can only be loved if we can do, only when we are productive? Why is it so hard to believe we are really truly loved? Yes, my mother is “useless,” in that she can no longer make meals for her family, help in their gardens, babysit the little ones, or any of those myriad of things she used to do. She can no longer take care of her own personal needs without help. She often can’t remember her children’s names, much less her grandchildren, and the great-grands, well, forget that. But she’s my mother, and I remember all those things she did for me all the years my life. I know I am who I am because I am hers, because she loved me. She doesn’t need to do anything more to be loved. She is truly and well loved right now! I pray she may be able to feel and accept all the love so many people have for her.
And I want to learn this lesson for myself, that my lovableness is attached not to my doing, but to my being.
