Imma

At the end of my last spiritual direction session, my spiritual director asked:

"Would you like a Catholic or a Protestant prayer?"

We both chuckled and I answered "I want a heartfelt prayer"

"Abba..." he began.

My journey of caring for my mom was one of tenderness. I have known tenderness and I want to believe that, for that reason, I can recognize it with ease now. "Abba" is tender, is calling to the loving and caring presence of the Divine. I could feel it in my soul, and I could feel it softening my heart. It was a word that invited closeness and familiarity but also trust.

Open wounds require tending and gentleness. A significant loss is an open wound. It is raw; showing its insides, exposed and vulnerable. And that is exactly how I showed up to my session with him that day. My rawness was met by the wisdom he now possess after experiencing his own loss. We held my pain tenderly and did not hesitate to admit the awakening of his own when I mentioned the possibility that my grief might have triggered his.

When he finished praying I wonder about another word, one that would feel as good to me but that addressed the female side of the Divine. "Imma" is the female equivalent. "Imma" for Mother.

Losing my mother has been my biggest loss. For the first few days I felt lost.

My mother told me I once got lost in a city when I was a toddler. She remembered because she might have been scared. This story came to mind wondering if that younger version of me felt as lost and confused as I was feeling now.

"Mamá, má, amá" All of these words evoke tenderness, and a tenderness that is well known to me. The tenderness of being seen, loved, and cared for.

I have been transplanted to the land of grief and my heart is now open and, suddenly, connected to the hearts of all children, no matter their age, that have lost their mothers. Connected, with humbled understanding, to the heart of my mother as hers ached for my grandma.

In times of raw vulnerability, I am grateful for the tenderness that shows up in caring friends and strangers, in solitude, in birds, plants, and rocks. The benevolence of life that rushes to those who ache to offer comfort. I may not be able to contain the grief within me, but if I let it out, I have found the gentleness of wind, water, and tress as they help me hold it.

These days are days of quiet contemplation and remembrance and so I tap into my heart center, aware that it has been broken open, and say: Imma, mamá, dear mother, great mother, I pray to thee.