Lunch with a side of Bitch

Some of you know already that my beloved 38 year old daughter was born with some developmental differences in her brain that affect her gait, speech, intellectual processing, emotions and physical health. Being her mother has been a mixed bag of challenges for me as much as life in general is a huge challenge for her. On the whole, I would say that I'm probably a far better person today than I might otherwise have been. I have been forcibly stretched out of my comfortable ruts of various attitudes and beliefs about people and the meaning of all this experience of being human. Yesterday I lunched with two other mothers who face similar challenges with their children and am today enormously grateful to remember that my life is so full of joy, as I see that theirs is not.

One of these mothers probably drinks a little too much and the other has told me she knows her husband does drink too much. I found out over 25 years ago that my drinking was out of control and was making me physically mentally and emotionally very ill. I drank for many reasons and sometimes for no reason at all. When I did drink, it was often ugly for those around me and when I didn't drink the world and life seemed unbearably ugly to me.

What I realized yesterday is that I am free in mind and body in a way that so many apparently are not. I saw and heard in these two women the pain and suffering of frustration at the way things are, a rant about how things should be changed, and complaints what's not right with this or that. Both women are bright and well educated, but these days that doesn't dazzle me as it used to. It doesn't seem to have added much to their peace of mind or sense of aliveness and joy.

I'm not all that well educated myself, in the formal sense with letters and credits after my name. I aspire to completing some of my formal college studies one of these days. Meanwhile, I managed to claw my way into the world of business, then a life in the theatre for several years took me to some exquisite heights of success and dreams of greater fame and fortune. Then an ugly divorce humbled me, took me back to square one and I'm enjoying yet another do-over, thank you Universe.

At the painful point of pruning on the stem of my life, a new shoot seems to be thriving. Amid the inevitable thorns, now and again a sweet surprise blooms, like a moment of profound joy and gratitude for being alive and grateful for being the mother of my gorgeous and irritatingly slow daughter and her brilliant and charming brother. And for not having to slug down anything that alters my brain or body because I'm just fine without, I will never be able to express enough gratitude.