My beautiful daughter

I want to talk about my daughter today.  Her name is Vaya.

She is my first born and the one I have made most of my mistakes on.  My son benefited somewhat from what I learned from those mistakes but he had his own set to contend with.

But my daughter has taught me what is real in life.

She is loved by everyone she meets.  She is smart, she is funny - no really she is, she's a comedian and a brilliant one.  She writes, she acts, she baby sits, she is a good friend and even a good cook.  She is dedicated, hard-working, loving and loyal.

In short she is everything I wish I was.

On top of everything else she doesn't let anything slow her down.  Vaya has tourettes syndrome.  A mild form of it granted, but she has it.  It has never stopped her.  In fact at the time she was being diagnosed at the ripe old age of 11 she was adamant she did not want to be seeing doctors and absolutely did not want to take any drugs to control it.  We battled on that score for a short time but I gave in because I began to question my own motives for pushing her into medical solutions for something that only bothered me.

Recently I was chatting with one of her best friends on Facebook and mentioned the Tourettes. We were talking about how the girls had grown and how life had panned out for each of them.  I made some comment about how much I admire my own daughter who has made a life for herself as if she never had Tourettes.  Her friend wrote back and said "oh yeh I forgot about that...I don't even notice".  I was well and truly put in my place.  My daughter's friends don't measure her life and her successes by a neurological disorder, however mild, so why do I?  Well in fact I don't  but it rammed home the truth to me - that the only true handicap my little girl ever had was her mother.  My neuroses, by insecurities, my mistakes all visited upon her.  But she rose above it all and became her mother's greatest inspiration.

Part of the reason I started blogging was to fulfill a lifelong dream of writing. Of writing something, anything at all.  Now in my 50s I have taken the first tentative steps.  My daughter is 29 and has surpassed me in achievements 100 times over.  My only advice to her had always been to do what made her happy.  And she is.  I keep my greek mother self in a box and refrain from asking when she will marry, or when she will have children, or when she will buy a house.  It is hard - because that was the only path that was envisaged for me as I grew up.  

I want to say that I am proud of her.  But that is arrogant and wrong.  You can only be proud of something you have done yourself.  In fact she has become the wonderful young woman she is despite me.  So, instead, I will say that I am proud to be associated with her.  I am proud to be called her mother.  On my Twitter profile I describe myself  as 'aka Vaya's mum'.  It's a funny twist in my twisted life.  I resentfully grew up in my mother's shadow yet I walk proudly in my daughter's. 

So this morning, as the day dawned on my dear friend's funeral I sit here thinking of the other woman (and heaven help me she IS a woman) in my life who inspires me.  As one inspirational being leaves this earth another slides into place to show me the way.  I find myself truly amazed that my own child  turns out to be my true inspiration. 

The apple fell under the tree and is nurturing it. 

I am a very lucky person.