When I think about my mother, and I am thinking about her especially today as it is her birthday, the word that always comes to mind for me is centered. It was not that she didn’t have, or express, a full range of emotions but more that she always radiated a sense of inner peace.

This sense of centeredness was palpable, an energy so stable, so calm that it made others feel calmer. I would imagine that she as a child, Mom was one we might call an “old soul,” wise and gentle and thoughtful beyond her years. She was grounded in a way that many of us strive for and you could feel it in her energy.

I don’t know what it was like for her to have a daughter like me, dealing with a mercurial, overly active and highly emotional child. I know I tested her in many ways, not only because I remember some of it, but also because, after she died, I found a dresser drawer full of handwritten notes, all from me. There were certainly the typical event-related cards, progressing from crayoned messages to Hallmark-type greetings. The bulk, however, were notes of apology that I wrote to her, little kid notes with creative spelling and teenage notes with justification for whatever the problem was, before the necessary “sorry.” I would have loved to have asked her about all of it, about parenting, about how she felt. We never had those conversations, she was gone before we had the chance.

While few of us are born with this inner balance, we also live in a world where everything feels chaotic and out of control. The image I have is of trying to stand, arms akimbo, on a balance beam, in the middle of gale force winds and rain. So much is coming at us all the time and, right now, all of it is disturbing and unsettling and more than a little frightening.

So, how do we try and find center? How do we try and find peace? I will never be the centered person that Mom was. That is not who I am or who I was born to be. But I can, and we can, try to calm the winds around us and find ways to keep steady on that narrow beam. Mom would often say to me “Take a deep breath” and she was not wrong. Giving ourselves time to breathe, really breathe, can help. Journaling can steady us as can incorporating a gratitude practice into our lives. Meditating through any means, from sitting quietly, to walking in nature, can open doors to inner calm.

I am grateful to have had my mother for as long as I did, yet my heart still aches that she has been gone from my life for far more years than she was physically in it. I am grateful that, while my memories are not as vivid as they once were, I can still feel that centeredness she embodied, still hold onto that as I strive to fill my full heart.