I love my mom, but I’m ashamed to admit, I haven’t always given her a fair shake. I haven’t always appreciated her. I haven’t always yielded to her. Frankly, I haven’t always viewed her with the soft, forgiving, eyes I offer to other loved ones in my life.

I have my reasons. I have my beliefs. I have my agenda. I always have me me me my my my. And the result of all the me and my, in this case, was a relationship with my mom that, well, it had room for improvement.

Enter the Dharma.  Which has blessed me with the tools to identify the starting place for all my pain/ problems. And the starting place for every solution. You  guys know where that starting place is already right? Me me me my my my.

This story, is the first of a number to come in which I begin to contemplate my wrong views about my mom and our relationship.

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I have a dear friend, Kat, whose mom was in town, and she invited me to go to dinner with the two of them. I knew Kat was asking because she really didn’t want to spend time alone with her mom. The two, like my mom and I, have had a challenging relationship at times. In Kat’s case, she blames her mom for her parent’s divorce and ultimately having to grow up in a single parent home when her dad moved away. I have heard Kat’s sad story so many times, seen her perspective and, of course, taken her side. She is my friend after all.

At dinner, the tension between Kat and her mom hung in the air. But, equally as present, was Kat’s mom’s love for her daughter and pride in all Kat had accomplished. As I sat there I became so sad watching Kat’s mom try so desperately to gain her daughter’s love and approval. She had, as a single mom, sacrificed so much to raise Kat and still, Kat was so busy holding onto her side of the story, to her pain and frustration, she couldn’t even see her Mom’s efforts. Kat was so busy being the victim, all these years latter, she was missing the scene playing out in front of her. And then the moment of internalization, this is exactly like my mom and I.

Sure, my mom, like all of us humans, has made mistakes, done harsh things.  But many of them were long ago, and seen from the perspective of a child. My mom clearly wants my love, she works so hard to get it. But just like Kat, I am so stuck in my own re-run story that I can’t even appreciate her efforts.

For the first time in my life, my heart ached for my Mom. I realized the pain my slights, comments, inattentiveness, my Kat-likeness have caused her. In a world that is so hard, in which I have so few allies, I have hurt someone who cares about me, who loves me, who had gone out of her way to support me. This is not the kind of person I want to be and so, the seeds of change, of me becoming a better me, a better daughter, were planted.