He called me Mommy last night.
I turned the hallway lights off before walking into the bedroom. I had noticed the same one flickering as it had done before, and acknowledged it was him. It’s the light right over the buffet that holds some of our memories: my mirrored box of feathers, two lions, the framed photo of the heart in the sky with the arrow that represents thoughts. We’ve been sharing thoughts for several years now.
I looked up to that light and told him that he is light, that we are light.
A few minutes after laying my head on my pillow, I heard the words, “Hi Mommy.” It was startling and I wondered where it came from. He hadn’t called me “Mommy” in years…, decades. It’s always been “Mom.” I recalled our phone conversations; I’d answer and he’d always say, “Hey, Mom.” In all our telepathic conversations, it’s always been “Mom.”
Why is he calling me “Mommy” now?
I began to examine that word: “Mommy.” In my head, I repeated it over and over again.
It’s pronounced “Mom Me.” It’s spelled “Mom My.”
That weird English language rule that the letter “y” can sometimes act like a vowel and make the long “e” or long “i” sound. Both are significant here, I conclude.
As I ponder all of this, my son reveals the most profound message of all. “Mom and me; My Mom.”
That one word says it all. It is sacred and it withstands every heartbreak this world can bring.
“You will always be ‘My Mom.’ ‘Mom and Me’ forever and ever. ‘Mommy.’”
Of all the words in the English language, with all its meaning, this has to be the most beautiful. For it represents the point at which the most powerful love of all is created.
My son grew inside my body, as all babies do with their Mommy. It’s an indescribably astounding feat. Where his heart was formed and its first beat pulsed. He called me “Mommy” in those first few years. I felt my own heart grow a thousand times bigger as I held him in my arms.
And now, with my world separated into two, he’s showing me the magic of this one word.
“Mommy” not only gives life; Mommy protects, nurtures, and loves so fiercely…
Eventually, she must let go. Her child ventures into the world–a world rife with obstacles, challenges, trials. Some will break us; some will shatter us completely. But I think that’s the key, to find our way back.
He called me Mommy last night. And in all my years of writing and using words, I have never before looked at that word in the ways my son has shown me. I will always be forever grateful to be his Mommy.
To know and realize that powerful love, totally and thoroughly indestructible–the driving force of the whole universe. That it never dies! That connection: heart to heart, soul to soul, continues for all eternity.
This, I know, with every fiber of my being. My son has proven that to me. A million times over, he’s proven that to me.
