Lighting a Lantern for Mom

Last week on Mother's Day, I flew to Seattle for business. The business I was there for didn't actually start until Monday morning, so Sunday evening I visited my alma mater, the University of Washington, and walked from there to Green Lake. I walked around the lake, taking pictures of the gorgeous sunset. And then I happened upon something unusual: A group of four women releasing floating lanterns into the sky above the lake. It was such a beautiful sight, I couldn't help watching and taking photos. But then I felt creepy for photographing these people I don't know doing something that appeared to be some kind of intimate ceremony. So I approached them afterward, apologized for taking photos without permission, and offered to delete the photos and/or share them. The women gratefully accepted my offer to share the photos with them. They explained they had been sending the lanterns off in memory of their mother, who had passed recently. I told them that my mother had also passed recently, about a year ago, and they unexpectedly offered to let me light a lantern for my mom. I was touched by their willingness to share this experience with me, and thankful for the opportunity to participate.

As I watched the lantern float away into the sky, I thought happy thoughts about my mom and imagined those positive feelings going out into the world, my mom making the world a slightly better place through me and others she touched for good. I remembered laughing with her, I remembered how she worked hard as a waitress and single mother to support me and my siblings, I remembered how she gave me her love for learning and for music.

After I thanked the women and started walking away, another take on the experience occurred to me: Sending that lantern into the sky could just as easily be symbolic of me letting go of the more negative effects of my relationship with my mother. I won't detail my mom's shortcomings here because that's not my purpose, but I will say that in many ways she was not emotionally equipped to raise children. I believe she did the best with what she had, but I have spent much of my adult life realizing how abnormal and deficient my childhood was, and how unhealthy my relationship with her was. My life can be split into three parts: The first eighteen years I spent unable to distinguish my mom's emotional needs from my own, the next eighteen years I spent slowly separating myself from her emotionally, and now since she passed I finally feel free to be myself completely, with my own needs and all. In the past year I have come into my own more than I ever managed to before. From that perspective, letting that lantern fly away was cathartic, like releasing the baggage that my mom left me with.

I am not ungrateful for all my mom did for me and all she gave me. I love her and I miss her. I also feel relieved to be free of the more difficult aspects of our relationship. No human relationship is all good or all bad. Perhaps the contrast between the good and the bad in my relationship with my mother is more stark than in most. Regardless, it was nice to say goodbye to Mom--both the good parts and the bad parts--one more time. She is part of who I am, and now more than ever I'm happy with the person I've become.