My Summer of Waiting for Patience

“Patience is a kind of love. A love that is its own explanation in bewildered circumstance. It is an old, old woman placing a wrinkled-parchment hand against the cheek of a reckless child. Because her heart is too wise to make room for reproach. Too full to find place for offense. ” – Pavithra Mehta

It’s been a year since my mom passed away. Last summer was a maelström of emotions with a virulent combination of personalities. My memories of that experience have blurred, partly because of the distressing nature of events and more so, perhaps, because I just wasn’t present. There were very few moments, if any, where my mind and heart were in the same place as my body.

What a difference a year makes. The kids finished school in June and ten weeks of summer vacation loomed. I signed them up for 4 weeks of gymnastics day camp, we went on holidays for 1 week, and the rest of the time was just me and the boys, a 6 and 3 year old. I admit I felt a little panicky. It seemed like a lot of days to fill without the busy work of death and dying.

And then an idea dawned; hey, why not forget about the whole summer and just live moment to moment each day. Could I – really? No. Forget it. This is the supreme goal of enlightenment for much more advanced spiritual aspirants than me. I needed a beginner step. I decided to work at eradication of my most glaring defect: impatience. Of course, I’m not into blaming people but, honestly, I did inherit this defect from my mother.

For me, patience is one of the most important virtues conducive to joyous parenting. It lends itself to being a great teacher; it allows little people to move and grow at their own pace, and it makes space for wonderful conversations with kids who need time to put together their thoughts and ideas. So, this summer, I cultivated patience. Was I a paragon of virtue? Not by a long shot.

I took it little by little. Every three hours of every day, I would commit to practice patience. 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. I would commit to being patient. 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. I could be patient for another three hours. You get the idea. I started to notice a pattern. Mornings were sketchy. It was easier to practice patience when everyone got a good night’s sleep. I learned to slow way down when we were all running on empty. Patience was generally high at midday but a little after 3 would often be a time when I felt like I was going to lose it. I quickly learned that the best thing to do was turn on the hose or jump in the pool.

Some days were still fraught with impatience. On a particularly rough day, I ran to the calendar to count down the weeks left of summer vacation. Still six weeks left? I was profoundly disappointed but after some reflection, I gave myself a giant mental hug because for me to go four weeks without even the slightest thought of counting down the days was truly one huge miracle. And in that moment, I happily realized that patience had come not only for my kids but for myself as well.

We had a wonderful summer and I enjoyed my kids for almost every minute of it.

I hope everyone had a fantastic summer. I’m back to blogging again after a summer of “no time to write.” Today was the first day of school so that excuse won’t really fly anymore.