I love the end of the first reading from Deuteronomy: "However, take care and be earnestly on your guard not to forget the things which your own eyes have seen, nor let them slip from your memory as long as you live, but teach them to your children and to your children's children."
Maybe it is the welcome relief from the negativity of the previous days readings. I felt uplifted and affirmed as I reflected on it. Hearing that our past, what our eyes have seen is important validates who I am as a person living in the present. I clearly cannot change the past. It is important. It has made me who I am today. It is all gift -- the good and the bad and everything in between. I know that my parent's faith, their social justice values as 3rd Order Franciscans, even mom's decision to quit her job when she married my dad, not just to raise kids, but to affirm him in a lesser paying job as the provider for the family have influenced me. It was not my dream or lifetime goal to stay home and raise the family. I wanted to work side by side with Tom as an equal partner in medicine and in raising the kids. It did not work out that way and mom's example has been a source of great comfort in the path I followed.
When we embrace our past, we give our kids a gift that they will never be able to personally experience except through us. Their experience of the past is through the filter of our lives. This is how we teach. I am blessed by mom's humility and dedication to raising a family. Yet my choice to do likewise is a cross that I bear in that I am not seen as an equal, nor am I an equal in the workplace and medical community. In life we all have a cross to carry, weaknesses and battles that we face. We can choose to carry our crosses or let them drag us around instead. This is the gift of both past and present that I can pass on to my children and to my children's children -- to embrace my past and live my life fully in the present. It is not a one-time gift, it is a process, with installments up until the day I take my last breath. This is the way we teach.
Growing up, I never would have thought that staying home with us wasn't your first choice. I was always so proud of the fact that my mom stayed home till Suzanne was in kindergarden and that we didn't have to go to day care. When we talked about you to our friends, you were our hero! We often joked that you had six arms because you multi-tasked so well. People in the community were always blown away an amazed by how you managed to get us to all the events and activities that we participated in. And the phrase was always "I can't believe she manages all of that and is still a doctor!" You were the envy of the community. My friends in high school marveled at the fact that both my parents were doctors and none of my siblings were "screw ups." Because most of the other models to be compared against didn't look so great. As I have embraced motherhood in the last year I have come to understand the sacrifice it takes: mentally, emotionally, and physically. While I love my job and am incredibly passionate about my students, I carry a guilt with me every day that someone else is raising my daughter. There is pressure to stay extra hours and help students succeed and yet every hour I spend there is an hour I am not spending with my own child. In the end I know it takes a village to raise a child and I am a part of the village that is molding the adolescent minds and I know it is important work, but please don't think for a second that people saw you as lesser. If anything they see you as a great pillar of strength and generosity. A women who raised five children who all went on to graduate from college in four years and who four out the five went on to higher education. That doesn't happen if love, structure, support, and guidance isn't given from the moment they enter the world.
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