mine

I want to take an opportunity to talk a bit about my mom.

First let me set the background a bit. She had four kids in all. Her first born, me, was diagnosed at age 3 with an ailment that would require a LOT of surgery over the next 10 or so years. As if this was not enough of a burden her third chihld went through a period of being VERY sick as well.

So what about her? Well, to me she has always been the strong one in the family that was always calm, cool and collected. When my sister almost swallowed her tongue during a febrile convulsion she kept her wits about her in a very scary situation. My sister is alive today as a result. This was waaaaayyy before the days of 911!

Here aresome of the things I remember and know about her as a person.

She always makes people feel comfortable around them. There was the time we went to Expo '86 together and saw something like 46 pavilions in 3 days. She was a real trooper....we must have walked the length of that place like 4 times in all and it was big place.

I remember how when I used to come home from hospital often she would have to do things no mother should have to do. She would have to put alcohol on my scabs on my incision and believe me I never thanked her for that one! She would sometimes have to re-teach me how to walk properly after having had surgery and lain in bed for months (sometimes a year at a time). She often would have to set up a bed in the kitchen for me, look after me because I could not climb stairs even to the bathroom or my room. And when I was scared at night she would be there.

It seems that no matter what curve balls I have thrown her over the years she has been able to maintain her composure and tried to be open minded.

When I went through a time of re-examining the surgeries that had been done to me and I was having trouble with the realities of it all she was there, on the other end of the phone for hours while I struggled with the enormity of what had been done and the irreversibility. Now, imagine how SHE must have felt when the dr's came to her and said 'If we do not do this major surgery on your little daughter of six she will just get worse and die" How does a parent deal with that? How do they know what to do? To authorize the surgery or try to let God help or hope for some other solution.....I wouldnot want to be in that situation. And when I started questioning the necessity of the surgery in adulthood did she show her impatience or her own hurt about the situation? Nope, she was supportive and listened and let me work through the pain and frustration.

A few years ago I had to have more surgery. I really do feel that a woman of 44 should not be put in a situation where her mother has to help her shower, but it was necessary because of the surgery. She did it in such a way that I was not made to feel ridiculous or intimidated. And frankly, without her help I would not have been able to return home, I would have had to go to some institution for the first couple of weeks post-op.

And let us not talk about her stew! It is the best. Every time I visit her or she visits me she makes it for me. It is the best comfort food possible.

There are so many other things I can say about her....her patience, her tenacity, her ability to stretch a $, her ingenuity, her intelligence.

So as to her intelligence....here is a 70 year old woman who keeps saying 'I cannot learn this new stuff' and then beats me to the new features on the internet. I have taught computers to loads of adults over the years...and yet when it came to teaching her I gave her one 20 minute lesson on WordPerfect, the absolute basics...and 1/2 hour later she was embedding a butterfly in a letter to her grand-daughter. Does that sound like someone who is not intelligent? Most recently I picked her brain about a product I am designing for a catchy name. I laughed and laughed...because JUST after she said "I am terrible at this type of thing you should ask...." and then proceeded to come up with about 8 different, bang up names.

As to ingenuity....when I was young I had to wear a brace, it was big and ugly and it was not possible to 'hide' it (look up milwaukee brace). So even clothes off the rack (if we could afford them) wouldnot fit. So she would get second hand clothes and cut them down (they were cheaper than buying material...) and create these original dresses and clothes for me to go to school in.

So what does all this mean? That here is a woman who raised four children while making it seem like it was no effort. My hat will always be off to her.