"When the heart weeps for what it has lost; the Spirit laughs for what it has gained."

One of my Facebook friends posted this last week. It's a sufi proverb and really spoke to me.

It says pretty much everything of what I feel these days. My heart is still broken. It probably always will be. But my spirit has changed.

As I've mentioned, these past few weeks, mom has been noticeably absent. I miss her terribly. I was at a birth on Tuesday and there was a moment when my client was pushing and both her parents were in the room and her dad said, "Boy, this really makes you appreciate all your mom went through for you, huh?" And my eyes welled up with tears instantaneously and I had to physically re-compose myself.

I couldn't help but think how I probably never appreciated all my mom did for me enough. It was if, in that split second of a moment, much of my mom's life as a mother passed through me. I "felt" her pregnant with me. I "felt" her lying on the operating room table when she delivered me by cesarean. I "felt" all the motherly pangs of raising a child. It was literally a split second, but I felt like I was whisked to another time and place and came back and the tears wanted to come. But having the Doula in a heap of tears in the corner doesn't usually look good, so I composed myself and moved forward. But I don't know that I'll ever forget that moment.

Then today I was working at the birth center and a baby had recently been born. The grandparents arrived to meet their new grandbaby and I welcomed them as they entered the birth center. They were so excited and the grandmother's face was just beaming. And the tears came again. I was able to quickly compose myself once again, but these moments have surprised me lately. There have been many more tears. Last night I was finally able to let some of them out, and even that surprised me when the flood gates opened. And yet, this morning, the tears were back again.

My grief feels like it is entering a different stage...or moving backwards...or something...just different. I imagine it will be like this forever. Different stages of forever grief.

But as my heart weeps, my spirit continues to gain knowledge and strength and belief. It's a fascinating journey. If you asked me what kind of transforming experiences I've had in my life, they would be few. The birth of my children, my divorce from their father and the loss of my mom. And all those have taken place in the last 11 years. Maybe it's just a person's 30s and 40s. Maybe that's when the transformations begin. I don't know. I just know that those 4 events are the moments when I felt a shift in my being. A shift in who I was. A shift in who I became as a result. I'm still in the "becoming" stage after mom's death but the transformation is apparent...at least to me.

"When the heart weeps for what it has lost; the Spirit laughs for what it has gained."

I couldn't agree more.