Really, really who am I?

 A few weeks ago, my daughter was sick; she ached all over, especially her shoulder. She tried holistic medicine, and then main-stream medicine: x-rays, blood work up, EKG. As she continued to feel under the weather, I felt more and more helpless. I could not even go the few miles to her house, and there was not one thing I could do once I got there.  (Needless to say, she is well again, or I wouldn't even be writing this.)

I am extremely lucky to have care-givers in times of crisis. Rosie is the laughing, happy girl from Jamaica, who has been in the United States, on her own, since she was eighteen. She is educated in the hospitality industry and has worked at Disney in Orlando and the Westin Hotel. While working there, and during the times she works for me, she graduated from college with a  degree in the management of medical recocods.  Her mommy, in Montego Bay, calls her at least once a day.

Tall and beautiful Lise came from Rwanda.She worked at Delphi in Dayton for a few years, and when they went belly-up, she was able (it's a long story, with a long series of pitfalls) to get her tuition paid at a  nursing school in Columbus. In a few months, she will be an LPN. She would like to continue on for her RN, but that is one tough road..... Her parents call her every day,  and after she talks to her siblings, she is homesick.

As I fall asleep at night, I think about Mrs. Gardner in Jamaica and Mrs. Urejani in Rwanda.We are thousand of miles apart; we have never met. But I know that, at their very core we are the same people. We are mothers.  Make that a capital M.