by Jo Kaur
When I was about 12 or 13, I discovered Enigma. We were visiting my aunt and uncle’s home in Michigan during the summer, and my aunt’s younger sister, who was in her 20s and so wonderful, cool, and kind, let me borrow her Enigma CD, and told me to check it out. I’ll never forget her, or that moment. She tragically passed from cancer recently, and I’ll miss her always. She was a beautiful and beloved soul.
I listened to her Enigma CD, and was immediately enthralled, transported to a distant place by the hypnotic and enchanting sounds of Sadeness. I also discovered Enya shortly after, and all of the rest, and just found it to so wonderfully complementary to the books I was reading at that time, a mixture of sci-fi, YA fiction, and mystery, stories that allowed my young mind to connect with the universe and embrace the divine, soaking in the ties that bind all of us, this planet, to all of its inhabitants, living or not. I fantasized that when I grew older, I would travel to the stars, and maybe there I would tap into what I was so hungrily searching for, a peace, infinity, enlightenment, a return to the oceans and worlds that contained the origins of all life, zipping through time and space. I was hungry for a deep, profound, and enigmatic love that makes us all greater than we are, that can propel us on our individual and collective evolutionary journeys toward goodness. I was looking for a sign.
Little did I know, what I was looking for was Riaan. Long before he was born, long before I knew he would exist. Long before I even thought of him as a possibility. Long before I imagined myself as a mother.
My child, born on a beautiful winter’s night. As magical as could be. My hope, my love, my everything. Defying time and space. Our love, eternal, pure, and unconditional.
What I’ve been missing my whole life, that connection, it was, it is Riaan. Riaan’s been through more than most adults I know in his short life. Yet he possesses the courage, chardi kala (eternal optimism), sweetness, brilliance, complexity, and kindness that I have always yearned to see in overwhelming spades in fellow humans, always operating with nirbhau, nirvair (without fear and without hate).
Before Riaan’s daily mid-morning naps, we often revisit my past, and listen to the Enigma soundtrack on Alexa, which includes a combination of all of the new age music that I first discovered that Michigan summer as a teenager. The music transports me back to those moments, when I was a young girl full of dreams much bigger than I was entitled to, who wanted to change the world and then some, who yearned for a spiritual and meaningful life, who wanted to connect with others, and be a force for good, who wanted to feel a taste of the eternal love that reminds all of us, people of faith or people of no faith, that there is something truly much greater than our individual selves.
The music quickly lulls Riaan into a deep, sweet sleep, safe and beautiful, all cuddled up next to me, and I stay with him, for a while, staring at him, listening to the music, looking at the light-up stars on the ceiling, and know that I have traveled through the many days and decades of time to find and be with my child, my baby. My love for Riaan is the best part of me, it always will be, no matter what becomes of us in this life. The gift I have been given to be his mother, to take care of this beautiful and perfect child, it’s my blessing. My heart longingly aches to be able to see him grow up, healthy and beautiful, because he is a majestic human being, and I want the world to know and experience that too. I believe Riaan - as glorious as he is now - will be a positive, incredible force for good as a child and an adult, if given the opportunity.
His life will always be far greater and more important than mine.
Staring at his beautiful face, lost in the music, the moment is disturbed by Alexa who plays a commercial (no, Alexa, we will not buy the unlimited plan), which jars me back to the day’s tasks. Riaan’s asleep, it’s time to get back to work. We have a life, his and that of other children, to save, and not a lot of time to do it.