My Christmas Miracle

I've started going to Meditation every Monday night.
It is a blessing...the opening of my heart, the relaxation of my body, the centering of my soul.
Tonight, my mom asked to go with me. At first I tried to put her off, but then I realized that I was being selfish. What was I afraid of? (There was nothing to be afraid of.)

As I sat there, singing along to my favorite chant, with my mom humming and tapping her feet alongside me, tears welled up in my eyes. Gratitude filled my chest. My mom is alive. My mom sat there beside me, eyes open, taking in every detail. My mom is alive.

That is my Christmas Miracle.

In a passage in tiny beautiful things, Cheryl Strayed is relaying an experience related to her own mother's passing:
"'It will never be okay,' a friend who lost her mom in her teens said to me a couple years ago. 'It will never be okay that our mothers are dead.'"

As I sat there, mother beside me, I realized something. For so long, I have thought of myself as the spitting image of my father. In many ways, I am.
But from my mother, I got:

Compassion
Anxiety
Creativity
Positivity
A ridiculous sense of humor
Openness
A sense of history

And so much more.

She almost didn't make it. She was so, so close. But by some miracle of miracles, my mom is alive (and thriving, I might add).

That is my Christmas Miracle.