Trying To Be My Mother's Daughter

I have learned many valuable lessons from my Mother, but one that she continues to teach (that perhaps I have not quite gotten the hang of) is optimism.  Not the kind of optimism that has one looking at the world through rose coloured glasses believing that everything is wonderful always.  More the kind that looks at things for what they are and makes the best of them. She has not had an easy life but she doesn't spend a lot of time dwelling in the past or thinking about  the what ifs and constantly wishing for something different. She just the deals with, and lives with, what is.  Her attitude is that if you are struggling, if things are hard, they will get better. She greets each new day for just what it is. A new day.

For weeks now I feel like I have been sleep walking through my days, going through the motions. My Mother is seriously ill in the hospital  for the second time in a few weeks, far far away from me.  Spurts of optimism come and go as I go about my daily life and try to prepare for Christmas.  

Yesterday, as I dragged myself out of bed early to face a long list of errands and shopping that I did not feel like doing, I thought to myself "what would my Mother do"?  And, the answer was she would get on with it and do her best to make it a good day.  Do her best to continue on living as usual.  And so I shopped, I baked and I wrapped all day with my Mother's voice in my head and her love in my heart.

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.” 
― Henry David Thoreau