“I will never forget my mother, for she implanted and nurtured in me the first germ of goodness; she opened my heart to the impressions of nature; she awakened and furthered my concepts, and her doctrines have had a continual and beneficial influence in my life.”

Immanuel Kant

God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers.
Rudyard Kipling

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With an alcoholic father who rarely gave us his love and provided no security, I’m sure that I could have gone down the solitary path of anger and insanity. For a while, I did travel this path. Abandoning reason. Abandoning hope. Losing direction. No cause. No cares and plenty of self loathing. I feared who I was and who I might become.

Had no one stepped in and offered me a different choice, the possibility of a different path. Had no one attempted to light my path with the fruits of knowledge and education and love and compassion, perhaps I would still be headed towards destruction.

I was fortunate.

Along my path, there were signs posted. Books left for me to trip over. Candles to light my way. Knowledge left along the side of the road. There for me. If I would only take the time to acknowledge it. Read it. Ponder it.

Eventually, I noticed these things. I read and studied and pondered life and my path.

Still I traveled a path fraught with the mines that I had laid to destroy me. Booby traps of the mind. Set in anticipation of unwanted, undeserved successes and accomplishment. It’s funny how some of us are wired to self destruct. We are brought up and something in us is told that we don’t deserve success. Along the path of our achievements are the traps we lay to rob us of our happiness. Our glory arrives always with our shame. So when we reach for success, we simultaneously push the trigger that implodes all of our efforts and brings us back down to the hell that we think we deserve.

I felt this way for a great part of my life.

But thankfully my Mother never gave up on me. She sent books to enlighten me. Sent poems of encouragement. My mother introduced me to philosophers, poets, the great thinkers, concepts unknown to me. I read everything that she sent me. And when I finally was able to comprehend it all, I started to incorporate some of it into my life.

I started to realize that I could choose my path. I realized that I did deserve happiness. The realization came that I was not my father and did not have to descend into that same madness. That I could become something different. The thing that destroyed much of my childhood did not have to destroy life.

So I changed. I became a much happier being. A more complete person. I grew to enjoy life and possibility.

Now I have traveled all over the world. Experienced people and places. Enjoyed cultures. Been a part of amazing adventures.

None of this would have been possible without the love of my Mother. Had she not shared with me her experiences and the knowledge gained in her studies, I’d never had climbed the Great Wall or experienced Cambodia. None of that would have been possible.

I owe much of what I am now to my Mother.

If I were dammed of body and soul, I know whose prayers would make me whole, mother o’ mine o mother o’ mine.
Rudyard Kipling