Five years ago, I was going through the worst of times and the best of times simultaneously. On 3/13/13, my mother passed from this life to the other plane. At the same time I had just met Mary, my then wife-to-be, my rock through those and any other difficult times.

Funny how the Universe has a way of giving you exactly what you need when you need it!

It is said that our mother is our first guru. In Sanskrit, guru means “remover of darkness”. As we were born, we moved from the coziness of the womb into the light of the world.

Since the day I was born up until today, my mother showed me love and light and she continues to do so. I learned to be “me” by watching who she was – albeit most of that unaware,

I learned from her strengths and weaknesses and I couldn’t have chosen a better mom (and dad) to learn from!

My mother was pure love, yet like all of us she had her share of stresses and fears. Before she died, which happened over the tragically short period of four weeks, all of those stresses and fears had vanished.

I remember visiting her at the hospital every day during those four weeks and connecting to her in such a pure, peaceful, beautiful way that I was not afraid to lose her. I was sad, for myself because I knew I would miss her, but I was never scared.

I am lucky enough to have had that time to connect with her during those weeks and look into her eyes to see a peacefulness that I had never experienced before. She repeated these words: “It’s gonna be all right”. She was absolutely correct. It is all right.

In these past five years, after mourning her departure, I count my blessings.

Five years with Mary in my life – almost a year married. Mary magically appeared in my life at the exact same time my mom was preparing to exit hers. Mary and I met in Peru of all places, we went through several years of going back and forth between Belgium and the USA, today we are nurturing our marriage and home here in New Jersey.

In this crazy world, we have our harbor of peace and nature. We are surrounded by many cats (and dogs), we plant trees every six months or so and we are lucky enough that our jobs allow us to share the gifts of yoga, massage, emotional and spiritual awareness with others.

In Belgium as well as in the US and Peru, our parents, brothers and sisters are happy, healthy and loving. We have one nephew and three nieces, two on each side of the ocean and countless friends to rely on.

These are the values I learned from my mother and my father. These are the values Mary learned from hers.

In daily life, we have our struggles and we learn constantly.

We learn to get back up when we fall or trip on obstacles. We learn that as we value and nurture pets and plants, we become better humans. We learn that theory without action is like the wind taking away our words, so we must act on what we believe. Not in the future but now. We learn that each journey begins with the first step, no matter how quickly we are hoping to get to the final result, the first step is often the most difficult and certainly the most important.

So, today I can feel my mom’s presence by my side and I can smile at her and tell her “It’s all right. You knew. Thank you for being such a beautiful person in my life. You were wanted, you were desired, you are loved and your presence is still as warming as the first day I met you.”. Je t’aime, maman ! <3

Translate »