Wrapping Gifts

By yours truly.

My friend asked me to help him wrap presents for his daughter while he's out of town. I did it mindfully -- every cut, every crease, every fold -- peacefully and with a lot of love, anticipating the child's joy. I took my time.

I thought about this preposterous notion of holiday stress, which robs many adults of joy. Wouldn't it be better if we just gave ourselves the gift of time? Thanksgiving dinners that take days to prepare are swallowed in minutes. Gifts that are painstakingly wrapped take seconds to unwrap. The paper is torn apart swiftly, thrown away and then suddenly, it's over.

When we gift, do we take time to think of the receiver of the gift? When we receive, do we take time to think of the giver? Do we think of everything that must happen for that communion, that meeting of my gift in your hands, to actually happen?

It's kind of a big deal. A miracle, really. And it all disappears into the big black hole of pressure we've invented that has nothing to do with Christmas.

Wouldn't it be better to have a holiday without so much -- oh, what should I call it? -- all this "muchness" that dampens the very spirit of that which we're trying to celebrate?

To let time expand instead of spiraling into a tight wad of stress -- that would be a great gift for all. So, I'm not going to wish anyone a happy holiday. I'm going to wish everyone a mindful holiday.

As I wrapped each gift, I thought about my inner child -- that adorable toddler with diapers bunched up under her pajamas, standing next to the Christmas tree with a mischievous smile and eyes beaming delight. There'll be no more Christmases for my family: no more mom, dad in the nursing home unable to tell the difference between one day and another and me, alone.

And then I thought about a gift I unwrap every day: dawn. And the blessing of an even greater gift, the present I unwrap every breathing moment of my life: the love my parents and I shared.

You can't put a ribbon around that love, yet it is binding and freeing all the same.

I can't wrap or unwrap my other human family, either, nor do I want to, because they are gifts that give every day: my sweetheart, my friends, the people in my professional life and YOU.

I am blessed.

Every cut, every crease, every fold -- how are you wrapping the gift of your own life each day?

My Mother, My Heart

I choose to remember her as she was in this photograph, nearly a decade before I was born. In 1960, she was pregnant with my brother and she already had two daughters from her first marriage. But she knew, even before she married my father, that they'd bring a boy and a girl into this world. She named me Maria de los Angeles while they were dating.

I almost missed the journey in her womb. Or maybe I was biding time elsewhere. Waiting, just waiting. A faint glimmer in her heart until she gave birth to me, three children and three exiles later, when the family finally settled in Miami.

I also missed the political mess of Cuba when my father pressed the shutter. The revolution had just turned in favor of communism. Not long after she paused to capture this pensive moment, she would venture out of the island to an uncertain future.

What was she thinking, I wonder?

Could she foresee the life ahead of her? Could she know, that in spite of some hardships, she would -- by the time she took her last breath -- never lack for anything? Did she know that all four of her children would outlive her? That she would have great-grandchildren? That she would travel? That she would be married to my father nearly sixty years?

Until the specter of Alzheimer's reared its ugly face.

She lost her memory and then, all the good and bad times she experienced -- life's richness -- all slipped away. She died before she died.

The last form of communication I had with my mother was through music. She was breathing, but barely barely conscious in hospice care. I had composed a song for her, which I sang while strumming a small guitar with four strings, about sweet unconditional love -- a love without fear, a love without malice, a love that still overflows out of my heart even though her body returned to the good earth in the form of ashes.

I became a mom to my mom and we were so blessed to have known each other during this lifetime. I'm glad I waited. And I'm glad that the faint glimmer in her heart saw the light of day. Dar a luz -- to give to light -- means giving birth in Spanish.

Caring for you, mamita, was the most challenging yet rewarding blessing.

You took such good care of me and I know you are looking over my shoulder now -- there's a tickle where my angel wings would be attached -- and that you are giving me the strength and courage to open a new chapter in my life, to take care of myself and my father until the two of you meet again.

Of course, I cry. Of course, I miss you. But you left me with a great legacy -- a sense of peace and grace.

You are not far from me, mama. You are forever in my heart.

A Lesson From Alzheimer's Disease: Hope Springs Eternal

Today is the first day of spring: the equinox, transitions on the earth's axis. Mother nature giving us a respite from winter.

It's also my mom's birthday.  I've had no choice but to put her in hospice care at home, which is sad, but also a relief for her sake -- all, everything and anything for her pleasure and comfort.  I am fully committed to making each and every breath she has left in her as joyful as possible.

It takes a village to raise a child. It also takes a village to help someone die -- to make a graceful, dignified and happy transition to light.

Recently, a friend of mine who practices Reiki, kindly sent me a care package with a teddy bear, among other goodies. When I first held the teddy bear, I sobbed, because it reminded me of the photo above.  If I hadn't had a miscarriage last year, I'd be holding a baby of similar size. I named her Alba, which means "morning song" in Spanish.

I had no baby. There was never a morning song.

But I'm still a mom to my mom.  My mom is my baby.  The sun still rises every morning. And hope springs eternal.

So now I hold the teddy bear instead, because I can no longer hold what I've lost, including my mother's old and ailing body.

We are attached to material things in ways we should forget.

Actually, that's the good thing about mourning a patient with Alzheimer's before she has even died:  it teaches us a lesson in humility and what is really, truly materially important.  It's the love in your heart, not the things you hold or possess, that forever remain -- an impossible invisible imprint, something unspoken but carved deeply in the soul, a petroglyph in the heart, the songs we sing in frequencies we can't see with the naked eye, the simple technology of suckling on a nipple, or feeding an aged body that can barely swallow, nourishment that has nothing to do with food, but that is all about compassion -- even if, dear mama, you are trapped in your body, unable to speak, move or live vibrantly, on this first day of spring, year 2014.

My mother's body is not my mother. But I hold her in a place so vast, so deep and filled with love, that she is larger than life to me, bigger than continents, planets, galaxies and universes.

Dear mother, thank you for being the vessel that gave me a body. A soft, supple yet strong body that I love. A body that sings.  And thank you to all the grandmothers and great grandmothers who gave me life. Women connected by an invisible umbilical chord through blood, flesh, and time, indifference of centuries; separated by boundaries of clocks, exiles, and tribes, differences of days.

Happy birthday, mama.  Even though you are dying: you are life, love and hope to me, just like you were when you held me when I was barely two months old.