Mother's Day Archives -

She Turns 30 Tomorrow

By Simone Lipscomb | May 12, 2015

Thirty years ago on Mother’s Day I was home with her dad experiencing early stages of labor. Two weeks over-due the little dumpling was arriving in true stubborn, Taurus, style–life lived on her terms, in her time. But when Monday May 13th arrived and the hands of the clock struck high-noon, Emily took her first breath.

I remember being in my room at the hospital later that day, holding her and realizing that it was the first time I really knew what it felt like to truly love someone. That was my daughter’s gift was to me. But I heard my inner, intuitive voice for the first time and it said: “You will never see her grow up.” So paired with the deep feeling of love was an immediate terror of something happening to this precious human I held in my arms.

Witnessing her grow into a feisty, wild child I was assured she could take care of herself. I allowed her to choose her clothes from a very early age. Her love of wearing large polka dots and stripes horrified my mother. Years later, when she was graduating from Auburn and fussing over her clothes matching exactly, I smiled at my mother and reminded her that Emily turned out just fine in the fashion realm.

She went from playing soccer as a five year old with shin guards that covered almost her entire legs and where the kids moved as one group of tiny ants to a high school player whose team negotiated complicated maneuvers…at least they were to me. I still don’t know soccer rules. I recall her being pushed to the ground and breaking her wrist in a high school game. My mother bear instincts had to be tempered as I sat helplessly in the stands watching her suffer.

Never did I have to ask if she did her homework…never. Not even in kindergarten. Emily was a self-starter and whizzed through school, including courses like calculus that she thought were fun and I thought of as foreign language from another planet. Her degree in Microbiology from Auburn amazed me, the mom who loved writing and photography…thankfully no calculus was needed in my degrees from Auburn.

Then two years ago my little girl got married to a wonderful guy. The time leading up to the wedding, the actual event and afterwards I spent much time reflecting on our lives. I realized I never really saw her grow up.

Thankfully the inner voice’s message that was heard the day she was born wasn’t referring to her physical life. What I missed was the day-to-day triumphs of her growth and becoming. Not because I wasn’t there but because I didn’t see.

Perhaps as parents we become too involved in surviving financially or emotionally to notice the really important stuff. I know I contributed to her life and was a good mom, but everyday stresses distracted me from being the mom I wanted to be for her.

A child of a thousand questions who always wanted to know more about everything and every situation she encountered, Emily’s birth launched me onto a path of deep, personal growth. Her gift to me was showing me that I could love deeply. My gift to her was showing her that nothing is more important than becoming the light we are born to be…and doing whatever inner work is necessary to find it.

She turns thirty tomorrow and it seems like yesterday she was born….my daughter, my teacher.

Mothering the Creative Process

By Simone Lipscomb | May 10, 2014

Twenty-nine years ago my daughter was making her way into this world. Labor began late Saturday before Mother’s Day and continued all through the next day. I remember calling to give my mother updates from home. Being a little taurus child Emily was a bit stubborn in her birth as she was two weeks late. I wondered if I would always be pregnant. Finally, after midnight, I checked into the hospital and proceeded to work through the night to bring forth my daughter, my beautiful daughter.

There was a period during the night when labor seemed slow to progress and fear crept into my mind. I wondered if it was possible to do what she was asking…this seven pound eleven ounce being demanded birth. Fatigue, pain and the fear of failing as a parent didn’t keep her from arriving at noon, the day after Mother’s Day. My daughter was a true gift and yet another gift, often overlooked when we are in the midst of the physical birth process, is the primal act of creation that comes when those of us who choose motherhood are initiated into it.

*When I was pregnant I played the piano for Emily. She continued to enjoy it as a baby.*

The process of weaving a human being into existence is one example of the creative force. But in reality, the same process applies to creating a work of art, a song, a career, a relationship…everything. I think of it as a cosmic cauldron made up of energy. Unlimited possibility dwells in this generator of the Universe. An idea appears and begins the lightning flash journey of creation that leads to manifestation. Step-by-step that energy and idea develop into physical reality. The process continues throughout our lives.

*Em and me at her wedding weekend last year.*

Like the actual birthing of a child, creating our lives can be scary, painful and riddled with unexpected complications. Our soul demands birth and progress along the path. If we listen, many times we are faced with unpleasant choices. Endings, goodbyes, deaths and yet with every death, we are reborn into another, and hopefully higher, expression of who we are in our truest, most genuine self. Doors open as we open ourselves to the life to which our soul calls.

*My brother Lance, mom and me a few years ago at her birthday lunch.*

The pattern of the creative process comes from our mothers. This is where, at the deepest level of our psyches, we learn how to create our lives. If we follow the path of our life backwards, we will always find our mother at the beginning. Even if she wasn’t in our life as we matured, we still find the pattern of the creative force in her.

All of us come from our Mother...you can see the family resemblance — *All of us come from our Mother…you can see the family resemblance*

Each of us, male and female, take on the role of birthing ourselves. We bring with us tools such as gifts and talents and cultivate or ‘mother’ them as we are drawn to our soul’s path. If we get snagged at some point we can journey back in our minds to our physical birth and remember….swimming in amniotic fluid, being pushed out of our comfortable, dark, watery home into a place where we are cut away from our mother, crying and grieving about the loss of safety and security. But we survived. We grew and treaded many paths to create our lives. And we can proceed through another process of birth.

*My grandmother, Ethel Hermecz, immigrated from Hungary when she was a toddler. What a life she created!*

It has been said that we are born without a map but perhaps our own birth mother provided an atlas of information that can be unlocked if we are willing to tread the path of the mystery of mothering. So to my mother…and her mother and all of my female ancestors, I am grateful. And to my daughter, thank you for waking me up and helping me step on to the Path.