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By Sheri Verdonk
May 8, 2011
"How the best gift you get is the one you give and it all started
from the one you got from your mother".
I’d like to thank the Worship Committee for giving me this
opportunity to share once again with my Davies Family. I expressly
appreciate the timing as Mother’s Day has always been a bit
emotional for me. My journey began readymade, and that is not always
a smooth road. It has taken me through some good times and not so
good times. There was the gift I received in the birth of Mimi just
weeks before my birthday a year or so after our marriage, it
continued through the addition of three more through adoption,
mentoring and now exchange. However, in recent years, I have come to
appreciate being a mother. Motherhood is rewarding but hard and to
tell the truth even putting together this message has been a
challenge because of my experience as a mother.
Motherhood is such a delicate balance
between what you give to your child and what you receive as a result
of your efforts. More importantly it is that expectation we have
about this particular relationship. Oftentimes as a mother we seek
to give so much and yet we never think it is enough. However, the
gift of what you give to your children should you be so fortunate to
parent, mentor or just be a positive influence on a child, is life
changing. It is through my own journey that I now truly appreciate
and marvel at the many gifts my mother gave me and I can only hope I
can give as good as I got. There are many days when I’m not so sure.
When I was asked to do this service I must admit I was stumped for a
focus. It is Mother’s Day after all. At the time, I had just
finished giving my second webinar for a group for which I am a
volunteer the Attachment and Trauma Network. The thing about this
group is that we are parents who suffer greatly because our children
were denied a mother’s stable presence during a critical time when
we all need an anchor. The goal of my webinar was to teach people
parenting children suffering from childhood trauma about healthy
attachment. Attachment is defined as a reciprocal relationship. It
is the quality of this relationship that shapes our ability to trust
and how positively or negatively we view the world, ourselves and
others. Attachment is the gift given by parents particularly through
that maternal bond. It is what makes us who we are. It is the very
essence of our being. This connection is a gift that keeps giving.
It is a gift that most of us take for granted. It is a gift that has
lasting reverberations in the lives of all of us as human beings.
Some would like to deny they have a need or desire for this gift,
and stoically go through life trying to appear as if they can do it
all themselves without the connection and comfort of another person.
But again, this bond is a gift that keeps on giving day in, and day
out, its presence has a significant impact in our lives on a daily
basis.
Through my webinar, I was helping these parents understand the gift
a mother gives her child that is key to who we will become and how
we will interact with the many people that will pass through our
lives; and if this gift is not given and even worse if this gift is
not received, it will have a significant impact on your entire life.
I must admit I wasn’t feeling so confident when I was given my
topic. What made me an expert? I’m not and this talk is not about me
giving you my expertise, it is about sharing the gift of giving, a
gift each and every one of us has the power to give and it all
started with the gift you got from your mother. It is the gift of
relationship and connection.
When talking about this connection, and for the most part I’m
speaking about the maternal bond, I am talking about a gift that can
be given by someone other than Mom. The specialists use the term
“significant caregiver”. I guess that will do for today, but this
person can be Dad, Aunt, or Uncle, Brother or Sister, Grandma or
Grandpa, Godmother or Godfather, Nana or Papa. This person is the
one whose very presence provides safety, whose voice and touch
evokes comfort and whose presence gives assurance that all is right
with the world. This person can go by many names, many of whom are
here today.
As I struggled with this message because of my own emotional
relationship to the topic and my personal motherhood experience, I
was so wrapped up in my own feelings that it was making it difficult
to put words to paper. How do you tell folks about this incredibly
precious gift of love, when understanding it is not so cut and
dried? How do you tell folks about the importance of giving of
themselves and connecting with others? The precious and integral
gift of relationship as the facilitator in a conference I attended
just recently put it.
It really is difficult especially when you only now understand its
significance yourself. The connection that starts with the maternal
bond is the foundation of every relationship you will ever have. The
effect of this influences our confidence, self esteem, as well as
our ability to navigate the world and make our mark on the world.
I have spent so much time in recent years, only seeing the negative
effects on children who were not privileged to receive this gift in
the beginning that I was blind to the positive. I was oblivious to
the gift I received from my mother and the one that I had given to
my child. Only now, after spending time supporting parents who are
giving the gift of connection to children who were denied this gift
in their beginnings and later rejected receiving it from their new
parents and watching and supporting these parents as well as myself
in that journey I can see how even in a situation that is not
optimal some joy can be found even if it is not what was expected.
This is when the light bulb went off.
The majority of the speakers at my conference as well as the board
members of the ATN are mothers struggling to help their own children
heal from some very dim circumstances, however, even in the midst of
the storms in their own lives, when they are in some pretty dark
days; they make the time to support and mentor other parents in
similar circumstances. It is this gift of connection which fuels the
giver, and soothes the receiver.
I then thought about the pleasure and sense of accomplishment I get
through my volunteer service in the giving of my time and talents
(whatever those are) to the many causes I’m passionate about. I
wasn’t always a cheerful giver. Yep! I know how hard that one is to
believe. But I wasn’t. I think it was because I had not fully
experienced the reciprocity of giving. I had not fully appreciated
the gift of relationship and connection and its deep roots.
I volunteer now whatever I can contribute to the ATN, my community
association, the PTSA and here at Davies because it empowers me, and
by virtue of that empowerment, it empowers others to be the best
they can be. Moreover it feels good. It feels good, warms my spirit,
all the while linking me to the greater community. Mom with her many
names started this ball rolling.
I watched my mother give so unselfishly of herself with the military
wives and the chapel and later on her church; and for sure with
neighbors who were struggling and adjusting in the rollercoaster
life you lead as a military family, who just needed someone to talk
to and mentor them. She gave of herself as mothers so often do, not
for any external glory but because for her it was a natural
extension of herself and the gift she too had been given from her
mother.
Unknowingly, I think, it was then that I began to sow the seeds of
giving in my nature, but the fruit of this planting had not
manifested itself in my life completely yet. That came later, in my
life as part of a Foreign Service family and because life in the
foreign service is fairly nomadic and extended family becomes so
important, this reinforced for me how important it is to connect
with your new community and establish bonds and roots, especially
with the people in it if you ever hope to feel “at home” in a
strange land.
How does this relate to you? Well hopefully some of those seeds that
were planted in you from that long ago gift of connection are
starting to grow. They must be because you are here. For the
visitors and those of you who are new to the community either here
at Davies or in Prince Georges County or from wherever it is that
brought you here today, it is that initial draw and need for
connection. For others of us here today spring has already blossomed
in all its glory, because here at Davies, we members and friends
share the joy of connection in the many things each one of you gives
to this church family and through some of you, others within our
Davies family have been given the gift and now you too share not
only the gift you were given of connection here with us, but you
also share the gift you were given through that initial bond with
Mom with her many names, and we all reap the benefits.
I have to say this because it is important, that just because you
received a gift and gave a gift does not mean the story ends there.
Gift giving is not a onetime thing. We, each and every one of us,
continue to need to give and receive the gift of relationship and
connection on a continuing basis until the very end.
So many of these gifts I have received have come from random acts of
kindness not intentional on my part but second nature because I
model what I was taught by my mother who is chronic giver of random
acts of kindness. She has mentored and touched the lives of so many
former students, staff, church and choir members and old colleagues
and she would be the first to tell you how her life has been
enriched because of the people who have passed through it and the
connections she has made. I have to agree.
Think about the gifts you too can give. The gifts you give as you
give yourself in service either here at church or for a cause you
are passionate about or every day in your home and throughout the
community. Think about the gifts you have the opportunity to give
each and every day as you smile kindly to the stranger at the bus
stop, or your favorite cashier or the quarter you drop in the cup of
a homeless person. This is something that is so small a gift, yet so
meaningful. Have you ever thought that the kind word you said, or
the smile you gave could have been the only positive thing that
happened in that person’s life that day? These are the stocking
stuffers in the gift of life.
The best gift you get is the one you give and it all started from
the one you got from your mother. Morrie Schwartz, author of
Tuesdays with Morrie said “the most important thing in life is to
learn how to give out love, and to let it come in. This is a gift
given to us all through our relationship with our mothers by
whatever name they are called. We then pay it forward. Mother Teresa
said “let no one ever come to you without leaving better and
happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness: kindness in
your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile.”
I never knew how much the gift of connection meant until I became
the parent of a child who wasn’t given it. I did not appreciate the
gift I was given from my mother and subsequently passed on to my
daughter as well as my son until I thought my pot was empty and I
was given a chance to share the gift of connection and relationship
with other families struggling to maintain their connections to
their external relationships as well as themselves. To quote Mahatma
Ghandi, “The best way to find yourself, is to lose yourself in
service to others.”
Just as I was putting the finishing touches to this talk I read that
Billionaire, Philanthropist Warren Buffet had organized a dinner for
people who had signed his and Bill and Melinda Gates philanthropic
“Giving Pledge”. I had not heard of this pledge. It is a commitment
for people of means to give the majority of their wealth to
charitable causes of their choice during their lifetime or after
death. According to this article, of the sixty one billionaires at
the event Mr. Buffet originally only personally knew 14, however
they all shared a common thread which was the connection they shared
in their shared belief that they had a mission to make the world a
better place that was inspired by people with less means than they
had at their disposal. Here was the gift of connection and
relationship operating at an optimum level. One participant of the
event said “Being able to share with other people who are agonizing
about the same decisions is extraordinarily useful, while the author
of the article said the meeting was not to pool financial resources
but to share their passion to improve education, the environment and
other causes. This is the gift of relationship.
This Mother’s Day in celebration of the gift each of us was given by
our significant caregivers give the gift of connection through
service. Give the gift of yourself.
“Remember there’s no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act
causes a ripple with no logical end.” Scott Adams (American
Cartoonist) “You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.” Kahlil Gibron
Happy Mother’s Day!!!!
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