art imitating life

i am probably the only person in the world who waxes philosophic after watching an episode of er. such is the case tonight.

as i watched dr. carter and that lovely brunette from mission impossible 2 dealing with the loss of their only child a year after his death, and how she pushed carter away when he spoke of it, i realized we all do that.

i've inextricably bound together the person involved (in some large or small way) to my pain and failure. they trigger those feelings of inadequacy and the resultant emotional upheaval that follows.

as i watched my daughter sleeping tonight, i wondered if she would bind me to her pain and failure, or if she would see the "better angels of my nature" as susan ashton so aptly put it. will she remember that i didn't doctor her ouchy and told her to stop crying and go to bed now, or will she remember that we spent hours outside today walking and talking? what will prevail in her little mind? who will i be to her when she is grown? a monster or a mom she fondly remembers?

of course this calls me to question all the thoughts i've thought of my own dear mother. how i wished she were this or that. i once sent her some very blunt poetry (are you surprized? really?). and i expected misunderstanding.

she stunned me.

she said, essentially

you don't know me.

and i didn't.

i had her pegged for something she was not. for a weakling. for a whiner. but she is a strong woman who survived many, many trials and pains i know nothing of, and cannot possibly begin to comprehend.

she is a woman who chooses to see the best in people and releases the painful memories from her mind, allowing those who flounder and fail in her presence the grace to try again.

but i have only come to realize this because she said that to me. she said,

is that who you think i am?

and i had to ask myself. i had to stop and reconsider all my ideas and concepts of her. i had to step out of the childish role of being able to comprehend and embrace the incomprehensible. allowing my mother to be who she really is, a strong, beautiful, surviving woman who made lemonade from lemons. she is truly amazing.

so tonight, i realized when someone triggers our pain. as is said in theophostic ministry, we have to stop and consider what that pain is about.

or run the risk of so identifying a person with our pain and failures that they embody nothing more than our pain and failures. they become our pain. they become failures. they can do no right.

how many souls i have damned to this place in my life.

i praise God for one mindless television show, that He used to reveal it.