Nurture21

Imagine for a moment that you have to stand in the shoes of the woman you have been the most critical of in your life. The person that if you're honest - you've judged. The person you promised yourself you'd never be. As you stand in those shoes, you start to see her life from a new perspective. You start to see the reason she is the way she is, why she does things the way she does. You see her hurts, her struggles, her insecurities - but you also see her successes. Do you think your opinions of this person would change? Do you think that you might be less quick to judge the next time you see her and her life doesn't meet your high (or low) expectations and standards? I'm ashamed to say that for me, there have been quite a few fellow women throughout my life that I've internally sneered at, criticised and judged. I didn't sit around with a clip board marking them, I didn't openly arraign them. But I did draw conclusions about them, I did satisfy myself ...

2008 was a bitter sweet year for me. It was the year I became a Mum and it was the year I lost my own Mum. My Mum missed meeting my daughter by five and a half weeks. I think we both kind of knew that it was never meant to be, but it remained a deep unspoken truth that hurt too much to voice. It was a remarkable thing really. My whole pregnancy was littered with poignant moments that seemed to tie my mum and my daughter together before she'd even entered the world. I remember an occasion when I was four months pregnant at my parents house; I was being sick in one bathroom due to my progressing pregnancy and my Mum was in a bathroom across the landing being sick due to her progressing cancer. The circle of life never more magnified than at that moment. My nine months of pregnancy mirrored nine months of deterioration in my Mum's health. During the last few hours of my Mum's life I sat next to her bed and placed her hand on my huge pregnant tummy. I watched the colour gradual...