Remembering “YOU” and 10 ways to mother yourself

“Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because regret is stronger than gratitude.” ~Anne Frank

September is always a tough month for me. It never used to be this way but it has been for the past two years. While it marks a time for Indian Summer, the last warm days of the year, it also marks a time of the darkness increasing over the light, the days becoming short, and life giving way to dormancy and a colder way of being. It marks a time of death, of falling leaves, leaving behind skeletons wrapped in bark. It’s a time of going inward, a time for regeneration, a time for rest, of gathering strengths for all the new that lies ahead.

For me it is also a time of remembering you, remembering just a little more than usual. Fact is that I remember you all the time and there is not a single day when you are not with me. You know my heart and how I feel and I think you came to comfort me the other night. The electronic typewriter kept flashing and blinking it’s lights while being stored away in it’s cubby and without anyone visible to touch it. Where you typing me a note Mom, was this your way of telling me that you’re here with me, that you are ok? It doesn’t take your death anniversary to celebrate your life and it’s hard to believe that it’s been two years that you have left this world. It’s been nearly the time I last stood at your grave before returning back to America. Despite the physical distance, my heart couldn’t have been any closer during the last two years. Today on the anniversary of your death I could write about all things that I miss about you, how much my life has changed since you’ve been gone, and how difficult the grieving process has been. I could write another tribute to you as I search my mind for words and things that haven’t been said yet. But it feels like a broken record, something I have said many times before and today I remember you a little different.

“We talk about them because we’re proud. We talk about them, because they deserve to be remembered. We talk about them, because even though they are not physically with us, they are never far from our mind. We talk about them, because they are part of us, a part that we could never ignore or disown. We talk about them because we love them still and always will. Forever. Nothing will ever change that. ~Scribbles & Crumbs

If you still have your Mom and parents around, consider yourself lucky. If you have a great relationship with your Mom, consider yourself even luckier. Chances are we all remember a thing or two our mother’s did that made us feel cared for in a way only a mother can make you feel. They say that the love of a Mother is unmatched, a one of a kind that goes to the end of this world and can’t be found anywhere else. Here are 10 ways and things you can do to gift yourself the care and comfort you might have known from your Mother, meeting yourself with the highest understanding, love and compassion.

1. Validate your feelings and emotions.

2. Pay attention to your needs and honor them.

3. Give yourself permission to be imperfect.

4. Offer yourself support and care during pain.

5. Notice all you’re already doing so, so well.

6. Delight in small moments of joy with yourself.

7. Be tender with your own heart.

8. Allow yourself to set and maintain Boundaries .

9. Affirm your own existence as a human being.

10. Remind yourself of your worth, over and over.

And in the end nothing can match YOU or replace any moment spent together. I love you and miss you. Still, always and until we meet again.