Bottomless Joy

We've just returned from spending four days with my family in Montana, a state where both my parents were raised, where they met, married and later retired. They built a lovely home on Flathead Lake where my siblings and I, our spouses and children, have gathered for twenty-plus years. My father was a city councilman and mayor in their small town, and when his health declined, my mother nursed him for seven years, largely in the house and town that previously knew them as a power couple.

When our group of twenty-two gathered for a singalong last Friday evening, Mom was the brightest and most festive voice, the loudest clapper. My brothers danced a jig around a red solo cup as we sang the songs we've adopted over the years as family anthems: the Proclaimers "500 Miles" with its da-da-da-da chorus that we smother with "Clav-a-det-scher"; with John Denver's "Wild Montana Skies" and with the Georgetown fight song (my father, my brother and my nephew are Hoyas).

As I looked around the circle, every face expressed emotion: those who were leaving early the next day had tears in their eyes, the youngest grandchildren were wide-eyed and perhaps a bit horrified by their fathers' boisterous vocals and crazy dance moves, and the spouses were good-natured, singing along with not an eye roll in sight.  But Mom was my favorite to watch, her smile beaming and her blue eyes bright, not a tear even threatening - only joy. It's as if the many years she spent accompanied by sorrow carved out a hollow that is now full of happiness and light. I've never seen such capacity for happiness, such joy reflected back on the people who co-created it.

My brothers, my sisters and I are so blessed in the luck of having two strong parents who made their love known to us throughout our childhood, and we are impossibly blessed now with a strong mother who put a an impossible load of caregiving on her back - only to stand without bitterness when she was relieved of it, ready to fill that space with more love, with light and with joy.