Lucky

People are always telling me how lucky my son is to have me as his mother.
It breaks my heart to be so complimented when I am the lucky one.

Truth is I am blessed that he is mine, blessed to have him as my beloved son and my beautiful boy. I feel honored, humbled and deeply reverent that I was chosen to care for and raise this most precious child.

When questioned, people tell me of bad mothers and what a rarity it is to find a woman who invests in her children; so, this is the terribly low standard I am surpassing.

We live in a world where women are consumed with sexual conquests, professional accomplishments, financial and social status and outward appearances at the expense of their children who get cast aside and neglected, abused or raised by strangers in daycares or by nannies. The unrelenting experience of mothers failing their children inspires those who encounter me and my son to bolster me with compliments; it pains me deeply.

Our ability to love has shrunk exponentially, so many women are constantly careening towards disaster, living from one shadowy place to another and leaving a ghost land of unloved babies who wander our world lost, looking for their mothers.

A few months ago, a Canadian woman killed her teenage daughter with her own bare hands to save a relationship with her boyfriend. The girls' last words, according to her mother as she was strangling her were "please, mom, don't". I think of that girl often and I am devastated.

We as women are in a dark, deplorable place historically in our growth and must find our way back to ourselves.

I am the lucky one.