Thanks, Mom.
I miss you still, always. This fucking Hallmark day reminds me and usually I ignore it. Today is different because I remember more now than I could before. The early years after 2 strokes hit you when you were just 57 years old bound me in those sounds and pictures. Getting off the elevator, I heard your screams above all else. Watching your eyes watch me bedside, impotent to say or do anything helpful.
This day, your wide toothy smile with a slight dip on the left dances in my head. Your long drag on your cigarette before you collapse in a gut laugh ruining any chance of a smoke circle.
The two who built me include dad who was physically strong enough to serve in the Scouts and Raiders in WWII and you, Mom when you overcame a lost kidney at age seven in a sledding accident, ulcers and a gallbladder removal with a scar rivaling a shark bite. You sat by my bedside for my first 12 years while severe asthma wracked my lungs. You got me to the doc in time in high school when my mono included jaundice and again during college registration when shingles attacked the left side of my face. Because you offered plastic surgery you couldn’t afford, shingles may have freaked you out the most. The scars have softened mom, all of them.
Back in February, I went under the knife for the fourth time on my ankles — and this one was the heaviest lift yet. The surgeons took out the ankle replacement that had been failing since 2011, pulled the talus bone entirely (the one wedged between my shin and heel that the whole joint depends on), and built me something new from scratch — a custom implant shaped to my exact anatomy, because nothing off the shelf would fit what was left. They cut and reset my shin bone to get the alignment right, and drew stem cells from just below my own knee to help the whole thing take hold and heal. I wore a cast, then a boot, now a brace. Four surgeries. Four times learning to walk again. I’m learning so much this time about how a body heals at age 68. I am so grateful that's all I've had to do. But it's enough.
You never saw this age. I’m definitely glad you never saw this time. If you hadn’t had a stroke when you did, these times would have lit that match. In your time, you followed Reverend Burton’s instruction to leave dad alone financially by not asking for alimony. That careless man showed me the gap between what the church said and what the church did. At 14, I learned to watch what they do, not what they say. Letting go of the props of the church left me with responsibility for all my actions instead of relying on a male sky god for everything.
Unaware of how to fight back, you lived with the court’s refusal to force dad to pay back child support which cemented our financial chaos. That court’s foolishness became the foundation for the decades of work I spent helping mostly women overcome the same system so that all family members could have a financial foundation to build on after divorce.
The hospital you sat in for eight hours before someone noticed your face fell, failed you, setting up the death sentence you waited out for 10 months. That experience has made me an advocate in any medical setting where a loved one is compromised.
Something you said that I still carry: “count your blessings, not your losses”. Some milestones, Mom! I played parts of 8 holes of golf yesterday. You’re supposed to twist (including your ankles) when you drive the ball. I’ve never swung that way and didn’t yesterday. On hole 4, my drive delivered my desire by flying my ball past sand and ponds to within inches of the hole for a birdie. Taking two flights of stairs, today with feet in footholds, I rowed for 22 minutes stretching my legs, lungs and arms. Two weeks ago, it hurt to even put my ankle in the foothold. I’m heading out for pool walking to swish past the pain backwards in the warm water imagining I’m dancing down a trail. Because I will be soon enough.
As a kid, I remember pulling my pjs out from under my pillow, getting ready, then sitting with you on the half pew in my room, reading “Little Visits with God”. After, kneeling, prayer, then popping into bed for a kiss goodnight.
While I don’t carry the burden of organized religion or many of the ideas that made sense as a kid anymore, I carry the love you shared. Love carries me every day. Thanks, Mom
