Listening to Mothers

Last weekend I sat in a room in a school where my kids have gone since before they could walk. I listened to a woman I have known for two years tell a story so beautifully- in a voice shaky but sure; the story truly hers and truly from her heart. It was about pain and loss and love. I had no idea this was a story that the woman carried with her every morning that I saw her at preschool, every afternoon when she prodded her daughter back into her coat and coaxed her down the stairs, towards the car.

I listened to a woman I had never met before but could easily have been in line behind at the grocery store a million times ( hey, it's a small town) tell a story equally eloquent, different in subject and form and yet almost identical in it's themes of pain, love and loss. Then another woman, another story, and on and on all day.

Some of the stories were hilarious and I snorted with laughter. Some had me blinking back tears and failing. Some had me holding my breath, wishing a good ending, a kind twist of fate, upon the reader. Each of the stories, weather uproariously funny or gut-wrenchingly sad, were about pain, love and loss. That is what it is to be a mother.

We all have these stories. Some are more dramatic and told often to keep a memory, a soul, a time and place alive. Some can feel silly or petty when we speak them aloud so we hold them close, the pain known only to us. Last Saturday I had the honor of hearing 22 people, some of whom entered as strangers, all of whom left as kindred spirits, tell me their stories. The room was filled with pain and loss and love - the room was filled with mothers.

Thank you to everyone who auditioned for Listen To Your Mother Spokane. Your stories were all honest and beautiful and I will hold them close. Here's to getting more of our stories out there to be heard, cherished, respected, and here's to Spokane's inaugural LTYM show!

Location:Listening to Mothers