Legacy
2/4/07
by Cynthia Leslie-Boles, MA,
Catalyst Life Coach
I’ll answer your unasked
questions, my dear children, like knocking on wood or throwing salt
over my shoulder to ward off fading into dimmest memory wisps and
whispered wonderments. I won’t haunt you like a specter, throwing
out glimpses of self, whiffs of substance, hints of who I was. I’ll
shine the light so you might see and know the poetry of my life.
My relationship with your father – you
wonder what it was like. Some days it was sunshine sparkling on sapphire
waves. Others it was a sky filled with leaden gray clouds dully reflected
on metallic seas. It was all the eddies, undertows, currents, ripples,
and riptides of an ocean of love. The tide came in, and the deepest
soul communion fused our hearts. The tide went out, and depression
blocked the light and numbed our hearts. The tide came in, and fragile
anemone fingers opened to comb the life-giving brine. The tide went
out, and the sea flowers shriveled in on themselves with sun-parched
skin shielding fragile pink flesh. So on it went, love and sadness,
endless soothing cycles of the sea, all as it should be and has been
forever for the raw, ripe, human heart.
And would I choose him if I had it to do over?
Yes, in fact, I choose him again and again in each newborn moment,
even when I pulse with pain as well as the lifeblood of love. Did
I need other sustenance and nourishment? I did, and friendships helped
me keep stretching delicate tendrils towards the light, kept me swaying
in the currents, bending resiliently. And did I have a voice in the
marriage? It came, it went, it ebbed, it flowed, at times becoming
shrill and strident, at others a warm secret-sharing murmur, at times
a weak whisper, and sometimes, the mute, throttled silence of pressure
building behind a seawall holding back tsunami waters.
And how did I experience the challenges my children
faced? Like rusted spear points piercing my softest, secret organs.
Could I live separate from their trials and travails without self-recrimination?
Yes, sometimes, like the wisest whale with wrinkled face and knowing
eyes. And no, sometimes, like a quivering jellyfish, all vulnerable,
liquidy softness with no protective shell.
And what did I want for you? On the off-center
days, when my wisdom was only a far-away echo, I wanted it to be easy
– easy for you, easy for me – no tears, no fears, no pain.
On the days when lightening bolts coursed from my crown to my feet
and back again in loops of courage and clarity, I wanted you to see
the light, own your light, and live in its radiance, confidently guided
as a ship at sea steers by the beacon on shore. The light leads, though
shoals and shallows can still stall the journey, and the push and
pull of the primal tides of life and love will still swirl through
you. But the light cleaving the velvet, salt-laden darkness to guide
your ship home, that is what I wanted for you, my children. That’s
what I wanted for you.
Cynthia Leslie-Boles, MA, Catalyst Life Coach
