Born of Imperfection.

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A rocky relationship between mothers and daughters of our time is not uncommon. Turning 40 and finally understanding your Mom has been a popular event for my generation. So here I am documenting the observations of my event.

Mothers are strong and so is my mom. She is a woman from the boomer generation, born in a single income family with no generational wealth, the middle child among 5 kids with 2 older and 2 younger siblings. She caught an illness as a kid that almost made her paraplegic, my mother was too stubborn to let that disease take her down so she defeated it. That is how potent her stubbornness was, so potent it devoured a disease that plagued an entire generation. The aftermath of that victory wasn’t easy either but she was determined to grow up healthy and so she did. The story of that part of her life I have heard a thousand times yet it took me 30 years to understand it. My mother defeated a physically debilitating disease with mental strength and some help. If that is not supernatural and superhuman than nothing is.

Her experience made her spiritual, she started practicing faith in the Gods that saved her or helped her save herself. She practiced faith in the only way she knew how to, same way she was taught to. Praying to Gods and Goddess’ in temples, daily rituals, fasting on certain days of the week that belonged to gods that are known to fast themselves, eat vegetarian on the days that belonged to gods that are vegetarian themselves, visiting popularly auspicious temples spots, giving ritualistic tributes and so on.

Growing up I judged my mom a lot. My colossally limited understanding of her circumstances made me believe I was qualified to judge her. Worshipping gods made of metals and stone, dedicating her body’s strength and time of the day to performing daily rituals in hopes her prayers will reach them and be answered. All this in my opinion was a waste of energy, time and quite frankly money too, as having an altar at home and buying tributes when visiting temples incurs costs. I didn’t have the wisdom to understand what it meant to her, I only judged her on what it all meant to me.

I wondered how a woman unconventional enough to have ambition rarely possessed by her gender in the social and economic status she was born into, had fought her way through university education and a full time career could succumb to such traditions. My adaptation of this chaotic world was too simple to understand her relationship with the world and the reason for her being a contradiction. I judged my mother for being contradictory and took decades to conclude that her contradiction is what helped her survive.

Her stubbornness, that everyone hated her for, was her survival mechanism. If she wasn’t stubborn, I wouldn’t have lived with enough the privilege to judge her. What I hated about her all my youth is exactly what gave me every privilege I have ever had in my entire life. My mother is not a woman. My mother is far superior and exponentially more divine and magical than any God she has ever worshipped, I hope she sees that someday while she lives. My mother is the very essence of the Goddess Shakti. She had defeated the demons that tried to make her physically disabled. She defeated demons that denied her every opportunity to become something different than the fate that was decided for her before she was even born. And then she went ahead and birthed 3 daughters and fought the entire world so they could become something different than the fate decided for them before they were born. My mother is a warrior Goddess. She is the divinity personified and the evidence of the fact that when Gods incarnate as humans, they choose to embody the same human flaws to experience imperfection. The universe has perfection in abundance. What it lacks is imperfections, for which it incarnates a world it created to celebrate flaws. Celebrate that which is unique, uncommon, unconventional, and can not be categorized, confined, or corrupted.

My mother is an undefeated stubborn warrior woman, who no one tries to battle anymore for they know better. She weaponized the hatred she received and won battles most don’t even try to fight. Her stubbornness is her biggest flaw, one that till date remains uncorrupted and untainted. She took the risk of wielding a weapon that could potentially bleed into her relationships and wound them forever precisely to save not the relationship but the person she had that relationship with. To understand that I had to become a mother. That kind of love is too potent to embody for any being and the only entity capable to survive it is a Mother.

“A mother is a being that willingly sacrifices the stability of its constitution, chooses pain, chooses to break its mind and body a thousand times over, just for life to take a form and experience the imperfection desired by Gods that created this world.”

My mother was smart enough to realize that finite energy means finite victory, so she selected the battles she could fight and win instead of fighting every battle and loose. I lived my life thinking I was smarter than her, but the truth is she was always wiser than me….

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