Wash Your Bowl
I have been hard to find lately, not teaching classes, not showing up on social media. I have been on the heart breaking and heart opening journey of losing my mother. She lived the last year and half of her life with ALS and ultimately chose death with dignity on March 6, 2024. It is difficult to find words for how much this has impacted my life, yet I know it is a passage many of us will face in our lifetimes. I share here what I read at her memorial. May her spirit dance joyfully among the birds and flowers forever! I miss you Mom…
She was called Sunshine by her father, Darling by her husband, Mom, Mama, Mommy and Mumzie by her children and Nanna by her five grandchildren. She called her self Earlene, always very careful to pronounce the “Earl" because she was named after her father.
Before she was a wife or mother, she was a nurse. Her nursing career began at age 22 and included operating room and hospital duties. She became a pioneer in the then new profession of Nurse Practitioner, practicing OBGYN and tirelessly advocating for excellence in the health care of women. Greg and I grew up with a mother who worked full time, came home tired and still made dinner for the family. We also grew up believing in birth control, condoms, hormone replacement therapy and a woman’s right to choose. Despite her dedication to her career, she was the maker of festivals, holidays, birthdays and traditions in our family. It was not until I was a young adult beginning my own family that I realized that holidays don’t just make themselves happen.
We have all been on the receiving end of her giving nature. When babies were born, she was there to help. When family crises or emergencies happened, she was there. She cared for our broken bones and helped us through our cancer treatments. Whether she was getting a baby take a bottle, spending tireless hours in dressing rooms with her pre-teen daughter, or patiently rehabilitating a high strung, traumatized dog, she seemed to never lose her patience for caregiving which extended not just to the humans and animals in her life, but also to her gardens, birds, and even inanimate objects.
I see this as her gift of caregiving, which could also be called attending. The gift of attention is perhaps the most precious gift of all. Earlene knew how to make a person feel fully seen and attended to. When she met someone she would take their hands in both her hands and look them in the eye and speak kind words. People remembered her for this, even if they only met her once. She had an exuberant dedication to treating others with respect and kindness. She took care to connect personally with shop keepers, mail carriers, neighbors and strangers whenever she had the chance. She could sometimes be seen waving frantically at passing cars in order to give them a friendly smile. She also had the kindest telephone voice you’ve ever heard, and would take care to remember and call people by their name.
Mom’s religion was kindness and caretaking.
In the Rinzai Zen tradition, there is a famous Koan that reads like this:
A monk in, all earnestness asked Master Joshu, “I have just entered this monastery. I beg of you, Please teach me.”
Joshu said, “Have you eaten your rice gruel yet?”
The monk said, “Yes, I have.”
Joshu said, “ Then wash your bowl.”
The monk understood and was enlightened.
Mom loved this life and she lived in beauty. She loved her family and her friends, her shells and rocks, her pictures and photo albums, morning coffee made just right and carefully laid out the night before. She treated all things and beings with loving care. We sometimes teased her about her attention to detail: organizing used paper bags and recycling, putting away the dishes so that the patterns were all aligned just so. But I now see this as a form of loving attention, the selfless work of bowl washing. What else is there in this life but to care for one another and the things and beings we choose to surround ourselves with? At the end of the day, she knew to wash her bowl.
She used to tell me she was not creative and had no artistic side. When she made a recipe, she followed the directions exactly. The same was true with knitting patters and sewing. But actually, her whole life was a work of art. The quality of attention she brought to everything she did yielded beautiful results. She tended her garden with devoted care and brought forth splendid plant life, there was no rock or shell out of place on her mantle. She tended her birds and bird feeders every morning as a ritual practice. She carefully groomed her dog and took care of her clothing which always looked new. She raised two children and was a caring attentive Nanna to 5 kind, smart, creative grandchildren who all carry her legacy with them. This humble woman who thought she was not creative lived a life that allowed others to thrive and grow. What could be more creative and generative than that?
She was of this world and she did not want to leave it. Although she made a choice about the timing of her death, she did not want to leave US. As we grieve the loss of our Mama, Darling Earlene, Nanna,… we carry her essence with us as we do our work in the world, tending our gardens, caring for our families, friends and communities and washing our bowls.
