Last week my mother entered a hospice program, and the next day a daughter-in-law gave birth. Mixing womanhood with businesshood at this most intimate level left nothing within me but gratitude. Gratitude that this is my life, the life I chose and am now able to live, to help my mom out of bed and encourage a new mother to welcome her newborn.

Previously I would isolate mom-caring from significant business demands, but last week, the flood of family decisions to be made over-ruled. I got it done by holding a phone in one hand and responding to a business email with the other. It was complicated. It was hard. It was what daughters do with and for their aging mothers.

Awareness and reverence and wonder and miraculous and happy and concerned and focused and incredibly loads to feel.

My mom with breath, presence, movement, smile, and need. She needs us, her family, at this most critical life juncture.

As I sat at the small kitchen table, I realized we needed Mom. Her being, her soft voice, her reassurance that this is her time.

This new mother is overcome with the miracle of her fragile baby, love, care, and enchantment. She is now sharing the just born grandchild through FaceTime with a great-grandmother.

Womanhood and Businesshood, not one or the other but both. Both during hard, emotional times, both during happy family celebrations, both during the day-to-day activity of life.

Womanhood and Businesshood, not one or the other but both during the cycles of life.