blooms and besos
“I kiss away your curse, I kiss away your curse!” the one little girl kept promising to the other little girl.
Their Mom was standing near taking a call, and they were busy in the business of healing as I walked into the grocery store last night.
Just a kiss and all was cured.
If that’s the case, I’ve got a whole lotta smooching to do—among friends carrying crosses of their own, up and down the hallways of the KU Cancer Clinic, maybe to the fella who played the “no you go ahead, no you go ahead” kindness with me at checkout. Everybody’s got somethin’ they’d love to kiss away.
Around my birthday last month, a dear heart thankfully let me know that it was okay to feel all the feels—that this one might land a little differently than others. I’m now finding that Mother’s Day is maybe doing the same. There’s nothing like an illness, a loss, a life change to crystalize things. When you tip toe a wait through scans, procedures, and an eventual knowing of what your something might be, it brings all kinds of things to the forefront—what kind, how long, who or what is gonna kiss it and make it better already?
Which is maybe why we have built-ins to our lives that help sustain us through those waits and wonders—friends, family, habits, routines, and seasons—those strongholds that we can tuck into when we need. For me, on Mother’s Day, that means a hubby who will foot the bill at the nursery for digging in the dirt, homemade cards from the kids, likely a bottomless cup of coffee while breakfast is being made, and something off the grill for dinner. A solid routine we’ve perfected over the years—creature comforts, home time treasured. Kiss. Repeat.
Mid-day this Mother’s Day will find me lunching with the sister who lives near and our Mom. Our Mom who still flashes a radiant smile, so full and beautiful despite the parts that have changed. Between memory and mobility sometimes fleeting, there’s plenty I’d love to kiss away for her. And in the visual that is her daughter having cancer, I’m certain she’s got besos for days for her youngest babe.
There is love in the lumbering, the figuring of who needs what when.
And often times, a simple kiss or bloom will do.
So that’s what’s on my heart, in my head this Mother’s Day—
the parts of us that need kissing,
the curses that need to be a-going,
the grace that is healing.
Wherever it hurts, I hope you feel comfort.
Whenever, whatever you can kiss and make better, I hope you will.
However you can love, I encourage you to do just that.
“Sayin’ One Love, One Heart
(One kiss!)
Let’s get together and feel all right.”
www.cardsbyanne.com