Mother Joy
By Theresa Shay
Joy is on my mind these days. We met when I was in middle school. She was an old woman then, likely the age I am now. Joy led the Scoliosis Support Group at the local hospital. As a late bloomer, I was the oldest girl in the circle, all of us studying Joy and wondering if we would grow up as skewed and lop-sided as she was.
Joy wasn’t a tall woman. She wasn’t a large woman. She wore her hair short with big fluffy auburn curls the same size as a pink hair roller. One of her shoulders was a mile higher than the other, and she limped with every step. Walking down the hall behind her, you could see the enormous hump on the right side of her back.
None of us wanted to be like Joy.
Yet all of us were, trailing along and separated only by a few decades of living.
Life assigns all of us membership to a club we have no interest in belonging to, as my director recently said. As a 10 year-old girl learning I had scoliosis, I did not want in any way to be special like this. I did not want to miss school for regular appointments with the orthopedist. I did not want to wear a lift in my shoe. I certainly did not want to wear a back brace as my body blossomed from childhood into womanhood. But I belonged to the club before I was even aware it existed. And Joy was my President.
The gift of seeing someone ahead of you on the path, marveling at what they do that you can barely imagine yourself doing, is to be mothered. Loving unconditionally, supporting with clarity and strength, responding with honesty and compassion, standing tall in your truth - even when some situation threatens to pull you over or pull you down - is to mother.
Joy was an important mothering presence through my tween and teen years. I hardly remember what we did in that circle of support. But Joy regularly repeated to us a line that has echoed a million times since. “What God didn’t give you in your back, he made up for in your smile.”
We beamed, young girls swinging our feet as we sat back on the chairs, other days tucking the tips of our tennis shoes under our ankles when our heads hung heavy in defeat. But Joy shined. And Joy smiled. Joy did not let anyone believe that life was over because we had a diagnosis we did not want. She walked proudly ahead and let us, her little ducklings with spines that wandered, come along behind. She showed us that life would make way for us. She held the torch and knew some day, we would find ourselves at the front of the line.
For all the mothers, for all the mothering, for all those who have touched our lives and whose lives we touch, we give thanks this Mother’s Day. Receiving, giving, and sustaining the long line of eternal love and light that holds every one of us, whatever club we’ve been assigned to, quietly reminds that every day is Mother’s Day.
Theresa Shay is the founding director of TriYoga of Central Pennsylvania, where she teaches weekly yoga and meditation online and trains others to teach TriYoga®. Each week, she shares wisdom cultivated from decades of TriYoga study and practice.
Learn more about her here. Theresa can be reached at Theresa@PennsylvaniaYoga.com. Find her on Instagram @theresa_of_triyoga for more inspiration and light.