Remembering Mom

I know you have probably all heard this before, but my mother was an angel and now she actually is an angel. What I wouldn’t give to have her here with me, though I must admit that in some form, she always is.

Each mother comes with an expertise on how to do things right-and my mom was no exception. She left behind persistent directions in my head and in my heart-am I doing this right? Is this the way mom would have done it? Each mom comes with these guidelines and without even knowing it, she leaves them behind for us-in our DNA resounding within us, making sure we try to get things right.

I could write a book about my mom and it would take pages for me to tell you all of the amazing things about her that I remember. Most of all she stood for everything good in the world-kindness, generosity, patience, know-how, honesty, determination and most importantly love. She raised the six of us on a shoe-string budget but treated us as if we were each only children. She did whatever she could to keep our family going. She fileted flounder for years for my Uncle Jimmy’s fishing station and saved enough to buy our kitchen table and chairs. And I’m going to venture to guess that no one ever found a single bone in their fish. She fileted with the precision of a surgeon and was paid 99 cents a pound. It seemed as if it took her years to save for that table and chairs and when sitting there together, you could feel all of the work and the love that went into saving for it.

Mom was a registered nurse and remembers her years in training at Southampton Hospital as some of the most wonderful years of her young life. All reports shared tell of an excellent OR nurse that knew what tools to hand to the doctor before even being asked. Yet, when my father decided to build the Whalers’ Motel, my mother left nursing to manage and run the motel-while raising six kids – washing sheets and towels- making beds, taking reservations, handling the books, ordering, she did it all. We even had an electric mangle in the basement where she would press the linens-and she would wash the drinking glasses in our dishwasher and place them each in little bags.

Mom could fix a car, a toaster oven, a lawnmower, a vacuum cleaner and just about anything you put in front of her. She was very mechanical and always up for a challenge. When she would babysit our daughter, and in the unlikely event that my daughter actually took a nap, my mom would be in the basement sweeping the floor or folding the laundry. She never rested and lived with the challenge to never stop moving – to never rust. So conscious of doing her part she recycled everything- gathering, washing out, folding, each bag, box, can and bottle to be recycled.

It was hard to witness and live through when this amazingly capable human being began to lose her memory. I think I first realized it when she couldn’t find her way driving from her home North Haven to my home in the village. Five-hundred-piece jigsaw puzzles grew to 300 than 200 and 35 eventually none at all. We tried to hold onto everything we could- I made CD collections of her favorite songs to listen to during the day – one sacred and one secular. I bought Memory matching games for us to play and read her books that she enjoyed. I went onto one of the photo sites and created a customized book of who’s who in the family that she could read and remember. Everyone in the family did what they could to try to hold on to this person we all loved so much. And no matter how hard we tried there was no stopping this trajectory.

I sat next to Mom and tried to memorize the lines in her face and the wrinkles in her hands. I didn’t ever want to forget this woman that bravely forged the path of life for each of us. It’s never easy to watch someone’s memory fade- a loss day by day and year to year. But love never faded and it was easy to return that love and patience and kindness that she had afforded each of us- back to her. It was surely our turn.

The most important thing I realized then, was that life became not so much about conjuring up old memories or worrying about making new ones, but rather, it was about enjoying the very moment at hand, the here and the now and the precious time that we’d never get back. It was a slow, insipid loss but remnants of her have clearly been left behind in each one of us.

This weekend of course we celebrate mothers and mothering- grandmothers, stepmothers, fathers who mother, aunts and uncles and neighbors, and friends and all who help nurture, care for support and mother others-those who breathe the soft breath of life into our souls and remind us of all the love in this world. May your weekend be filled with that motherly love as we all do our part to mother this beautiful weary world.