The Birthday Buddah

A few weeks ago, my mother bought me a Buddah. A very lovely, simple Tibetan looking stone Buddah made out of a greenish-gray color stone. It sits about 12 inches high in it's peaceful lotus position sitting on a small old table I've had for years, breathing new life into an old, but cherished piece of very small furniture. It's watching my back right now, as I write this, offering a sense of peace, of quiet, happy solitude in a time when I need it the most. It is without a doubt the best material (if you can call it that) gift she has ever bought for me. It is also the first gift for as long as I can remember that I actually wanted.

Mom is notorious for buying WAY too many Christmas gifts for us all every year and every birthday. Oftentimes, they were "gifts with purchase" or from some odd mail order place that was barraging her with advertisments and temtations on how to "show" her love to us all. Mom has always been very generous, but not always very good at finding out or guessing what we really wanted. So this year, I felt lucky to be in a position where I really kind of had to help her decide what to get me. We looked and looked. I knew I wanted a Buddah. I didn't know at the time how damn much I NEEDED the Buddah. But that's how things seem to be working out lately. The Divine seems to be providing just what we NEED right at the time we need it the most. I could go on and on about how much synchronicity is occuring in not only my life but just about everyone I know. It's funny how it works that way, eh?

Anyway, so we go to the first shop. One I was SURE would have the Buddah of my dreams. We looked and looked. Mom sat and sat while I walked around this ENORMOUS store, continually coming back to check on her and let her know I was still there. No dice. We were also on the prowl for a bird bath for my father, her ex, whose birthday falls the day after mine...every year. SO, we find nothing at this store in which I'm CONVINCED we should have found both items. But no. However, mom does find this little bronze statue, for $10 bucks. She wants very much to buy it for dad. I tell her:
"Mom, remember, dad doesn't want ANY knick-knacks for his house. He really DOES want something for his yard though, remember?"
"It does feel good to get that."
"Well, that's not something dad would like."
"It does feel good to get that."
So I say, "Do you want to get that for you?"
"It does feel good to get that."
Well, this little bronze statue looks EXACTLY like my mom...if she had no facial features, just a round head, were made of bronze, about 3 inches tall and sitting in lotus position. It even has her big belly and no shoulders. So I think, "Maybe this IS something she wants for herself. And it's only $10 bucks. What the hell. Let's get it. If she wants it, fine."
So we take it home and decide to look for birthday gifts another day.

Another day.

I remember a little shop my dad has taken me to that has loads of cool stuff for gardens. So we go. This TINY little shop where mom can SEE me wherever I am looking happens to have not ONLY the perfect birdbath AND the perfect Buddah and both quite reasonably priced but they had two other small items, also perfect that mom picked out...all by herself. She finds one of them because I was looking at it, a small rock with the words carved in it "Love Grows Love" and says "it does feel good to get that." It being a trinket, I grab it for our garden. The other, she walks casually by a table and almost without looking, points to a small stone necklace on a black rope. The stone portion is a circle with the yin and yang sign on it in two different shades of blue. She says again "it does feel good to get that" and I'm thinking "yea yea, let's keep moving" and then I look down and see what she's talking about and I myself couldn't have chosen a more perfect gift for myself. It is a style that I LOVE and the size is right and the length of it is perfect and it's the symbol I most relate with. I've always thought of my relationship with my husband in terms of the yin and yang because we are so different in so many ways. We happened to be in a situation right then where I really needed to be reminded that our differences were also an asset to our relationship and she found it. It was a real first. The first time she found something soooooo perfect, and her mind was almost completely gone when it happened. Ironic.