I think of all the wise women I have known, loved and respected. I am alive and loving life because my friends are all "wise women". I cannot imagine a world without the blessing of friends, sisters, mothers and other women who dance into your life with a bit of wisdom, gracefully given at the perfect moment.
As I considered throwing a baby shower for my forthcoming grandson, Asher, "Happiness" in Hebrew, I thought about his entrance into the world. I marvel that women of ancient days, gathered together and sang to the newborn at the time of his entrance into the world. I thought about the silly games we play at baby showers today, but still joyful rituals that celebrate the entrance of a new life onto the planet.
I thought of my wise women friends. I thought how wonderful it would have been to have my mother gather her friends around me when I was a young, new mother-to-be. I would have celebrated the wisdom of women who had given birth, shed tears, tried to love their child from every different angle...everything from the sting of a "wooden spoon" on the seat of their little britches, to serenading them at night with loving lullabies.
Today, my mother will be one of the "Wise Women" sitting on our council with others who have laughed and cried in the process of mothering. My mother is the wisest woman I know. She never raised her voice. She never used a wooden spoon, which my daughter Ashley says I used too often. She tucked me in a night and told me stories. She brushed away my sorrows from the day, with a wisp of her fingers in my hair and the whispering of her sincerely given compliments to my hungry heart.
I have tried to be a "wise woman" but have often failed my children and been sometimes, a foolish one. I pray for their forgiveness. I can honestly say that my children are my best friends. We have loved much, fought little and have been there for each other. As babies, I nursed them for many months, gazing into their eyes as they gazed back into mine. I whispered to them about their goodness and greatness as my own mother did for me. I expressed my love to them in the night, when they woke me for night-time nurturing.
I tried to not yell. But, sometimes I slipped. I never broke a wooden spoon on the seat of their pants. I used it rarely. Mostly, I was accused of being an "enabling mom". I probably was....because I wanted them to have love from every angle and to never doubt that I would be there for them. My "Wise Woman" advice to my daughter and son, Abby and Steven, is to be kind, to be kind, to be kind.
As a child, my mother reminisces about the time when she gave a family night about kindness. She taught her three daughters to sing, "I want to be kind to everyone...." Following her lesson, she said that I walked around the house, (age 3), carrying my baby doll and rocking her back and forth singing, "to be kind", "to be kind", "to be kind".
I have wanted to pass on the gift of kindness to my children for once, on another occasion, as a child, I asked my mother, "Who will be in heaven, Mommy?" My mother looked down on me with great big soft brown eyes and smiled. "Heaven is where the kind people will be."
I believe that mothers are here to create a place for their families that feels like a bit of heaven on earth. A clean, orderly home....warm dinners made with love....this all became harder for me after my divorce and I was now the bread-winner as well as the bread-maker. I had to hire my "wise-woman" friend, Phoebe to clean and organize my home as I went running about...making a living.
Being a "Wise Woman" in today's world is all about setting one's priorities. What is the most important quality you want your children to remember about you? My mother is a "Kind Woman". I want to be as kind and as loving to my children as my mother was to me. My mother is a giver of genuine compliments. I have never once belittled anyone of my four children, or negated them in anyway---- especially during a crucial time when they did not believe in themselves.
A "Wise Woman" keeps on believing in who her child truly is---even when the child forgets. It is up to us as wise women to reflect from our eyes, voices, facial expressions and tones of voices....that we do not doubt our children....that we will never forsake them....that we will never let them suffer the consequences all alone...that just as Christ suffered for our sins, so we as mothers who love greatly and deeply will shed tears when our children suffer. A wise woman may be seen as a little "enabling". But in my book, I will never cease to enable my children to have second chances...as that is how the wisest woman in the heavens would want me to rear her spirit offspring.
For you see, when it is all said and done...my children, who I have given my body to be their growing place and my home to be their nesting place, are really only on loan to me. The Wisest Woman is the Mother of their Spirits and I will have to answer to Her one day. How did I treat her children? How deeply did I love them? Was I good example of Her love to them?
That is the wisdom I care to give to Abby and Steven in Asher's behalf. Forget the wooden spoons and just ladel out your love!
