(Another letter to my Mom)

Dear Mom, (Dec 7 1988)

Thanks for the early Christmas card.

Your comment about ‘hearing’, coupled with your 1989 ‘coming events’, finally put my mind in tune with what has happened to you.

One forgets that parents get older as time passes…even though one may be approaching middle-age, and quite aware of deficiencies in one’s own physical prowess. (Do you like the English style of distancing personal remarks by using the [almost] personal third person?)

It has been said that the realisation that your children are growing, or have grown, up brings about the knowledge that you are getting old, too. (That’s the American way of distancing: using the second person.)

I feel slightly confused by all this sudden awareness of life’s limitations: it’s as if I’ve been pushed to the edge of a cliff, and told to jump, knowing full well that I haven’t yet learned to fly. (The first person [Canadian way] is still the best. It’s good to own my own thoughts and feelings, even as I’m sharing them with you.)

I wish that it were possible to return to OUR youth,

with the knowledge that we’ve gained along the way, without drinking from the Waters of Lethe and reincarnating. However, a fresh start, in a new body, is preferable if the old body feels worn out. The spiritual refreshment, in-between, takes away the pain of three-dimensional living.

But enough of that. I’m not sending you a ‘Mother’ Christmas card because what I need to say to you I can do at any time during the year in my own words. (In other words, no one else can do justice to my thoughts, as far as you are concerned.)

I love you deeply, more than just the love a child (or a son) feels for [his] mother, deep as that may seem. I also love you as a friend and confidant, and I look forward to the time when we can sit across a dining room table and discuss the progress of our lives.

Till then, I think of you with pride and

Love,

Chris X