Moms are not made in our image.
Although “You’re just like your mom” is a fairly genetically accurate expression, it borders on the dangerous if taken too far.
Moms are separate people and although we feel attached to them, they are living their own lives while being our moms. They sometimes have personal desires and life takes them in a direction where we can’t go along.
When Mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer, I could only provide some marginal support. But it was a painful path she had to take with God and to God.
In the end, I couldn’t take on her horrific daily suffering. I watched my flourishing, Italian mom shrink physically and lose more than just her plump pasta-weight. We had to cut that beautiful black and silver ponytail that was a matronly emblem - just to make it more manageable in bed. She had bedsores which we could dress, but we couldn’t heal for her.
All of those experiences were hers alone to bear. She was separate from us. We were pained, but our sympathy couldn’t take away her pain.
I’ll never forget one August day when I came to terms with this separateness and stopped praying for the miracle-healing and asked God to take her. Within a month, He answered that prayer. It was a cutting of the apron strings that my young-adult heart had to make.
When she went to be with Christ, I could not go with her.
It seems trite to say that Mom is with me to this day - and not just in a genetic sense. But I do sense that I learned of her love, vivacity, faithfulness and that giving Italian-Mom-To-All personality.
Hopefully, what she instilled in me might prompt someone to say, “You’re just like your mom.”
PORTAL TO HEAVEN: Godly parents are our first mirror of God’s character; living metaphors of sanctification which is the process of being changed into the image of Christ. A mom can put her whole heart into her child. But it’s still up to us to receive that nature.
I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.
2 Timothy 1:5 NIV