"... when you have duty and love, you are with grace.."

..Mother Superior says this to Kitty in the movie Painted Veil - a very interesting movie set in 1925 China about a British scientist and his wife who try to battle a lot of issues inside and outside their marriage while the Cholera epidemic takes lives by the dozens. The context of this statement with reference to the movie is mostly about the love and fidelity in a marital relationship. If you have seen the movie or read the book, or planning to do either, that comes out pretty loud and clear. So enough about that.

However, the little statement stayed with me all evening yesterday and was the first thought when I woke up this morning. I thought about it in a marital context and in the context of various other relationships in our lives. As a lover, a sister, a spouse, a friend, a teacher, a student, a child, etc... there are moments when "grace" does touch us and makes us a better person. However, in all of these relationships, there is a possibility when just for fleeting seconds, love might leave one for just a bit and all that remains is a sincere and honest sense of duty. Nothing good or bad about it, but most of us are "ordinary people living ordinary lives" ( as the song goes) and we all live with our own struggles, good, bad or ugly, we do the best we can.

But in all these relationships, it seemed there was one where the individual was always with "grace". It was as if the very nature of the relationship is "grace" personified and that is one of a Mother.

Think about it, your own mother and your own foray into motherhood. To knowingly take on excruciating pain time and time again, to relive it all just to hold the world's greatest miracle in your arms is the highest manifestation of love. And since that day, till the last day on earth for either the mother or heaven forbid, the child, that "grace" remains INTACT.

Whether it is trying to tend to a sick child, letting her children leave the nest, waiting for a phone call or a letter from a child far away, praying for their child's well being, in all this, there is the acute sense of duty and intertwined with it is this amazing love. A love, that is probably the most selfless of all forms of love, simply because, no matter how hard and how trying the circumstances, a mother always forgives.

So to all of you wonderful women out there, as you get ready of yet another Monday , or depending on your timezone, already into it, know this, no matter how troublesome the lunch box packing, flu-ridden kids, idiotic teenagers or any form of childish idiosyncrasies you may face, there is a reason you are doing this...simply put... you are and you always will be women of Amazing grace...

With love to moms all around the world.. and a special hug to my own..

Sincerely

Pritha