I recently had a bowl of probiotic chocolate Yogurt from my favorite place. It was delivered. Not having a big sweet tooth, I can make a 16 0z container last a long time, 4-6 days. I just need a little bit each day.
As I got to the bottom of the container, I was reminded of a question a friend asked me this week. “Was Mother’s Day ok for you this year?“ I told her it was and it was.
But like a roulette wheel, I never know each year how it’s gonna feel. So to share what it feels like to me not being able to have or adopt children, I share the following example so that you have compassion for women who don’t have children, and not judge or exclude them in your life or “at the table.”
So back to ice cream... when you get to the bottom of the ice cream bowl and you are desperately scraping the bottom to get that last bit off the sides, corners and grooves, that‘s what it feels like, both the desperation and being the bowl. Except the bowl is actually three bowls...
1 - the body bowl.
2 - the mind bowl.
3 - the spirit bowl.
The scoop being used scraping each of these bowls is serrated and infinitely sharp. And as the scraping slowly starts, it catches me off guard. The scraping occurs from one bowl to the next to the next until the three bowls become one. The scraping goes deeper and harder and faster into the one bowl called the soul and it becomes painfully numb. It‘s a pain that is indescribable. It leaves scraps of petrified wood and lost eggs in the heart.
But this year, gratefully, it didn‘t happen. It signifies deep growth and acceptaNce. But I’m not perfect and I know that this pain is real and justified and may one day return again at anytime and not just holidays.
And just like I have favorite and safe yogurt flavors, I have favorite and safe people who help me get through and out of that soul-wrenching feeling; and sometimes what I need is space. Subjects like this require safe, protective people. The same way Ice cream needs protection from melting.