Being my daughter’s mother is my greatest honour.
Today, is April 19, 2016, and twenty-six years ago, I became the greatest job that would ever be bestowed upon me. I became a mom. (Happy Birthday Erinn!). Thirty-seven hours later, with a ton of physical trauma, and a spiritual transformation that only I could intimately understand, this would be the most miraculous journey I could ever imagine. I’ve realized this much, that I was young when she was born (too young, I tell myself at times while doing some deep soul-reflection over these past 26 years).
Through heartache, through laughter, through giggles and late night talks and snuggles and story-telling too and millions of phone calls, shopping excursions, texts and hugs and kisses, through our lessons of greatness and lessons of smallness, our triumphs and failures and ultimate lessons, this will always be my greatest honour in my entire life.
To share my life with this girl is a continual ‘pinch-me’ moment that I never tire of. I get excited to be in her company daily and taste her brilliance and calm. She’s sometimes my teacher; other times she’s the student, she’s always a ‘cat momma’ and a recent grad of the Yandara Yoga Institute (now a yogi), and at other times, Erinn is a businesswoman with fairies, Angels and mermaids circulating around her head and with kindness radiating from her skin. The absolute joy I get from Erinn’s fairy dust is that I get to sit back and watch the show and with my deepest gratitude, I get one of the front row seats.
Erinn says she’s the Yin and that I’m the Yang. I know we chose each other for a reason and as they say, it is the baby soul/spirit that chooses their mom to be born from. They inherently know the lessons they need in their lifetime and are drawn to the soul they need to be born from. These lessons are all around Erinn and I every minute of every day and the amazing part is being able to share with each other what growth we have experienced and what better people we are becoming.
Way back in the year 2000, we discovered the TV show called, the Gilmore Girls. It was a new show and all the young girls were talking about it. Erinn was 10 at the time, and we had our home in Unionville, ON. As weird as it may sound, this show was really all about us. It was a show about a single, young, extroverted (crazy), “spicy” mom“ with a grounded, calm, brilliant evolved daughter (it was us!) and it was this “girl power” television show that helped us to survive and thrive as this single mom and daughter. It was amazing! We discovered we weren’t weird after all. If anything, it turned out to be cool to be us and Erinn’s friends were mad they didn’t get to have what we had (so weekends were spent with sleepovers of at least 5 to sometimes, 15 girls, hanging out at the ‘girl power’ home).
16 years later, this show has still turned out to be one of our highlights of hanging out together. When we travel, we check out Netflix in our hotel room, pop some popcorn and watch 3, back-to-back episodes with the biggest grin ever on our faces and of course, and I still get choked up with the emotional parts.
Erinn is my best friend. It gives me such gratitude right through my soul to be able to say that. Before every big event, from award ceremonies, cooking demos and shows, to TV work, being interviewed for print media, even power meetings, we have a ritual beforehand. It is without a doubt the most profound, positively-charged intention we do. We begin, first of all, by standing in front of each other, and we hold each other’s hands and gaze deeply into each other’s eyes. We then graciously summon the Angels to be with us. Then we say aloud, together, convincingly, “We got it”. We instantly become ‘one’ at that moment in time, enveloped in the power of love. It’s powerful stuff for the two of us.
Dear Erinn,
I see us grow with every staff meeting, TV appearance, book signing gig, and magazine interview. I see us grow together as this amazing duo of a mutually respectful mom and daughter, admiring our love for each other and compassionately, only wanting the very best for each of us (I see that in your eyes when you look at me). I see your confidence soar and your brilliance get brighter with every new challenge that life sends your way (I’m in awe of you). To share this life with you, is such an effortless thing for me to do every day, as it is as real, and natural as I could ever imagine life could be. We’re doing awesome! I’m so proud of you and us.
I’ve watched you dance right out of your cage and into your inspiring, authentic life, to live as true to you as possible, and push the negative away. I’ve watched you grow daily and with love so deeply embedded into your unwavering heart, right before my own eyes.
To say, I support you, is an understatement. I glow for you. I am all for you. I treasure you and to also be able to say this is so very hard, as I know I need to ‘allow’ you to be happy (to tap into your own shoes and in whatever capacity that may mean). Be it if it is building 10 more Kelly’s Bake Shoppes, and/or creating an online business too, or teaching yoga 7 days a week, I trust you will always follow your passion. What I have learned in this life is that mindfulness brings peace, and that we don’t control or own anything and our lives are so impermanent, as none of us know what tomorrow brings. Today, we have a cookbook (Made With Love) and perhaps TV too, and the desire to build more businesses and tomorrow we may have 5 more cookbooks, multiple locations of Kelly’s Bake Shoppes or you could decide to open a Yoga Retreat in some exotic faraway island. We will never know our future until it happens, as all we have is the present moment and what is in our hearts and our deep inherent passions to stay true to. Our goals and magic within are what keep us creating, and that moves us towards inner joy.
I celebrate YOU today. I celebrate being a mom today. Thank you for bestowing me my greatest honour.
Becoming YOU is your life purpose dear Erinn. Do not stifle this brilliance in you nor dim your light. You are magic.
No matter where we are on this planet, we are forever together.
Erinn, I know! “We got it.”
With my deepest love,
Mom
xo
