Revelation
Jan. 5th, 2018 04:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mama_kestrelI've been mentoring for a long time, starting with an SCA "little sister" I took under my wing when she was 13 and I was 23. (Possibly it was earlier, now that I think about it, because the "mama" part of "Mama Kestrel" was bestowed upon me by the other girls in the same wing of the dorm in college.) Once Kestrel was appended, it was a short step before someone started calling the kids who looked to me my fledglings. That was 25 years or so back, and it stuck. But I'm quickly closing in on 60 now, and I have fledglings who are over 40.
Different fledglings have needed different things, of course. Some needed an ear. Some needed someone to believe in them until they could believe in themselves. Some needed a stable base, or to feel safe, or to understand what absolute, unconditional love really is. Some needed a role model. Some had never really had a mother worth the name, and finally got one. At varying points, several of them ended up moving in with me, or with me and my husband once I was married. (My mom once opined that I was lucky my husband let me keep doing that. My husband, who was present, commented that he'd known about it before we were married and that if it had been a problem I wouldn't have married him.)
Over New Year's weekend I learned, quite by accident, that several of my fledglings have grown up to take fledglings of their own - mentoring them, mothering them, moving teenagers and twenty-somethings into their own homes at need, making sure they got medical care, the whole thing. One of them said specifically that she learned how to help others from me. It had never occurred to me that that was part of what I was modeling. But if I want to count what good I've done in the world, it isn't just my own fledglings, it's theirs as well. I'll never know how far those ripples go, but I don't need to. It's enough to know that they're there.
Different fledglings have needed different things, of course. Some needed an ear. Some needed someone to believe in them until they could believe in themselves. Some needed a stable base, or to feel safe, or to understand what absolute, unconditional love really is. Some needed a role model. Some had never really had a mother worth the name, and finally got one. At varying points, several of them ended up moving in with me, or with me and my husband once I was married. (My mom once opined that I was lucky my husband let me keep doing that. My husband, who was present, commented that he'd known about it before we were married and that if it had been a problem I wouldn't have married him.)
Over New Year's weekend I learned, quite by accident, that several of my fledglings have grown up to take fledglings of their own - mentoring them, mothering them, moving teenagers and twenty-somethings into their own homes at need, making sure they got medical care, the whole thing. One of them said specifically that she learned how to help others from me. It had never occurred to me that that was part of what I was modeling. But if I want to count what good I've done in the world, it isn't just my own fledglings, it's theirs as well. I'll never know how far those ripples go, but I don't need to. It's enough to know that they're there.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-05 11:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-05 08:36 pm (UTC)So I put it where I can go back and read it, and remind myself that in my own much quieter way, I've done my share as well.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-05 09:57 pm (UTC)Love you, Mama. Keep on keeping on.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-06 06:34 am (UTC)Also, that comment thread put me in mind of a movie that I hope you've seen, and that seems quite topical: Mr. Holland's Opus.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-06 06:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-06 06:19 am (UTC)