Unconditional Mother Love

I have spoken many times before that I think our world would be a different (better, and less violent) place if all men witnessed a woman give birth naturally. What human could send his son to war knowing what it took to get him into his body and onto this planet? 

I want to add that in addition to this, I strongly believe that if every single one of us received the unconditional love of the mother, the world would be a different place. 

I had this profound experience this morning in the Haymarket, ordering and waiting for my juice. This woman was sitting at a table with her daughter and son. Her daughter was probably four and my best guess is that her son is my son’s age, about 18 months. Her son was born disfigured. I do not know the politically correct way of saying this, so please receive this in the spirit in which it is intended, love. His head was extremely long, maybe his brain was swelling? I am not exactly sure. I even googled it when I got home because my nursing brain was so curious and had never seen anything like it, and I found nothing. I could barely choke back the tears and get out the words “Dragon Juice” when the woman at the counter asked me what I would like to order.

I could not help but feel profound gratitude that my son is so incredibly perfect and healthy. I was moved to tears by how unconditionally this mother obviously loved her “imperfect” child. I say imperfect in quotes, not because I think he is imperfect, but because of society’s way of looking at anything that is outside of the normal. 

I am not surprised that this woman loves her child unconditionally because he deserves that, like the rest of us. The surprise I felt when witnessing her pure love came from my experiences as a hospital pediatric nursing student and home care pediatric nurse. Many children in this child’s condition were abused and neglected, even left at the hospital because their “imperfections” were a burden the parents chose not to bear. 

I am still moved to tears. It took forever for them to make my juice, but I did not feel impatient, like I might have any other time when I get wrapped up in the fast pace of our culture. I had left my iPhone in my office and couldn’t pass the time responding to texts and emails. I am grateful that I left my phone in my office, and really appreciated having those moments to be present in my environment. I consider myself to be someone who is pretty present in the moment, but this experience inspired me to raise the bar in my presence moment to moment.

How do we learn to love unconditionally if we did not receive unconditional love. Gently. We start to love ourselves. We start to forgive ourselves. We stop blaming ourselves that we were not loved and supported the way we wish we had been. We parent. Parenting brings to the surface all of the parenting we feel we did not receive from our own parents. So we parent another, giving unconditional love and patience and the consciousness around planetary health, food, and medicine that we wish we received.
In this New Year, may we all continue the journey of conscious loving. Let’s learn to love ourselves and one another UNCONDITIONALLY in our perfectly imperfect selves, regardless of age, gender, looks, fat, skinny, tall, short. You are lovable. Thank you for being alive and for reading this!

Blessed New Year!