I love my mother

When I was younger, and I was struggling with a friendship gone sour, while I was dealing with many emotional issues, my mom took me aside. She sat me down and pulled out a bulging, tattered, and torn scrapbook. While it had obviously been meticulously pieced together, the years had not been gentle on it.

She set it on the table in front of her, placing one of her hands gently on its cover, the other on my arm. I must have rolled my eyes or made some similar teenage expression of annoyance for she quietly said, "Just bear with me a moment."

Even though I could tell that it had been a number of years since she had opened the book, she turned directly to the page she was looking for. She undid the fastening, gently removed a yellowed bit of paper, handed it to me, and simply said, "Read this."

On this faded and yellowed piece of paper, paper that had obviously been handled a number of times through the years, probably from her reading and re-reading its contents, was something that has stuck with me over the seventeen years since I first laid eyes on the words. I have paraphrased them to numerous people over the years, for I find them to be profound and essential to anyone and everyone.

“I love you,
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.

I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.

I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can’t help
Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.

I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern
But a temple;
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.

I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good
And more than any fate
Could have done
To make me happy.
You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.
Perhaps that is what
Being a friend means,
After all.”

I have Kitte Kaat to thank for finding the words for me again. As I read them tonight, fully, for the first time in many years, I can envision that angst-ridden, sad, and troubled child sitting at the kitchen table so many years ago. I can also see each and every friendship and relationship that I have let go because I realized that the particular relationship did not contain even a shred of the ideology contained in the above words. Thanks Kitte.

And mom, thank you.