Late one Saturday evening a young man, recently paralysed and rendered mute in an accident, is at the wedding reception of a relative. A young woman, name and details unknown to him, is sitting on his lap. She’s stroking his face; kissing; crying; saying things to which he cannot respond. She’s more than a little drunk; but sweet. He sits there, in the rain of her kisses, feeling his own waters rise. He’s desperate to pee. She’s oblivious. He makes eye contact with his mother; then looks at the girl who continues worshipping his face.
He hears something beneath him … Sweet sound.
His mother, having slipped under the table cloth, has crawled towards him and is now draining the contents of his catheter into an empty champagne bottle. Soon she will emerge from underneath the cloth and take her place opposite her son without anyone else having noted her disappearance. She will smile, and turn to make conversation with the man sitting next to her.
I was moved by this true story I heard on the radio. There are no words to describe how difficult the situation of this young man was, what this story says about the love of a mother, or the compassion of which women are capable.
As a woman with a passion for working with women, I want to honour this capacity for empathy and compassion and the ability to act on that which is so typical of many women I encounter in my daily work as a life and career coach.
To honour all women, this comment by Diane Mariechild seems a fitting place to end:
A woman is the full circle
within her is the power to
create, nurture and
transform
Re-posted by Juliette Gyure
