If you do fall, do so fabulously!

Wise people say that mother and daughter relationship is one of the strongest and complex bond in the world. It is considered one of the most powerful connections in nature.

I must agree with the term “complex”. My term with my eldest daughter over the span of 30 years is indeed complex, very complex. And it burst abruptly yesterday as I came home from work in the evening and didn’t see her in her room. At 00.25 a ring sound from my mobile phone shocked me. There was a message in my inbox from her. It basically said:

“Dear Mama, by the time you get this email, I no longer live at home.  I’m doing this not because I don’t love you or want to hurt you, but I feel like its best for me. I feel like living alone would do me good. I’m doing this because I want to pursue my happiness, in all forms no matter what. Maybe this will be good for me. I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye properly or told you about my plans earlier, but we were having so much fun lately, I didn’t wanna spoil it. So I’m going to end this email by saying thank you for being my mother. You’re right, our relationship may not be perfect but I always look up to you and admire you for being a hard working woman raising 3 kids and hope I can be as hard working and successful as you one day.”

The cells all-over my body were roaring, vertical muscles around my neck became tense, my head was spinning like a roulette wheel. There was a moment where I felt I was dead, numb with shocked. There was a terrifying silence. Big hole in my heart, ruptured.

Slowly I got back to the reality and from the back of my head I could hear Khalil Gibran recited his poem:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

I think she made a bad decision, she said this is the best decision for her happiness. So who is right? We stand in different position, so I guess no one is wrong.

My heart aches.

I can only say: Watch your step! If you do fall, do so fabulously because you are my daughter.