I wish I could post a photo of the Ermalator doing something crazy and age-inappropriate, like throwing wood down the bulkhead, wielding a chainsaw, climbing a ladder…but on this Mother’s Day the Ermalator is in bed, struck down--if only temporarily-- by the ravages of two weeks of chemo. Taking chemo is in itself a feat at 93-in-two-weeks, but not nearly as photogenic. Plus, she’d kill me if I posted a photo of her today. Like my mother, I have a strong will to live.
My mom is a force to be reckoned with, but today, she actually looks and acts her age, and it reminds me of all we have to be grateful for.
First and foremost would be her incredible will and stamina, and the indefatigable strength she has that has willed her to live 93 years. My mom was born in survivor mode. The sixth of eight children, born barely 10 months after her sister, she was delivered at home, and kept in the wood stove oven for warmth the first few days of her life. She was the color blue at birth, and she proudly recalls that she wore her sister’s doll clothes and her tiny head would fit inside a teacup. Apparently the family doctor grossly underestimated the fighting spirit in this bitty baby, as her birth certificate did not document her given name. Instead it read: Child #6.
She didn’t find that out until she was nearly 80 and in the process of applying for her first passport, when she obtained a copy of her original birth certificate from the state records.
The doctor’s disregard for her longevity didn’t faze her much then and I doubt it would have bothered her much when she was younger. My mom is an “it is what it is” person, and the irony that she is the last survivor of all her siblings is not lost on Child #6.
But as I sit by her bed today and spoon-feed her strawberry Jello, she looks fragile and vulnerable and so very very mortal – much like she did the day she was born, I suspect. And yet here she is, 93 years later. It is at these times that I marvel at her fortitude, her fighting spirit, her incredible strength. I’m not sure I would be able to face fighting colon cancer at 93 and have the guts to try spirit-killing chemo for the privilege of living a few more days on this earth. I have asked my mom how she keeps doing such incredible things for someone her age-like climbing ladders, stacking wood, taking chemo-- and she says, “It never occurs to me that I can’t.”
My mother is not gregarious or outgoing like her daughters, and was so shy in school she wouldn’t speak even when the teacher asked her a question. But those still waters run deep with courage. My mom simply has no fear. Perhaps that is because she survived a hurricane while tenting on an island back in the 1950s. She has had other brushes with nature. She loves to tell of the time she and her sister Fern came up close and personal with a bear while berry picking as young girls. She once had to walk by a moose standing in the camp road she was walking on with our two dogs. She did have a fear of flying until she went up in a friend’s two-seater plane and that “cured” her. She hadn’t even heard of the motto, Feel the fear, do it anyway.
Long before HGTV and YouTube to guide her, mom would dive into DIY projects– tackling home improvement projects, knocking down walls, painting, sanding floors, with little to no experience. She just did it. And still does it. Like three years ago when she painted her grout by hand in her tiled kitchen floor on her hands and knees with a paint-by-number watercolor paintbrush.
At the age of 80, due to some SNAFUs on a trip with other family members, my mom found herself alone to navigate Heathrow Airport. I couldn’t navigate Heathrow when I was with five other friends who knew the way. At 82, she went to Costa Rica, drank beer at the bars in the day time and went zip lining and white water rafting. A few years back, a guy stole $700 cash from her purse inside her house, so she called up his friend and said, "Your friend stole money from me!!" He claimed he knew nothing about it, but that guy did get caught, and my mother testified in court, and the state trooper said she was cool as a cucumber up on the stand. And the guy went to prison, and my mom got her money back. Thank heavens the thugs were too busy committing other thefts to circle back to cause her harm. Although she does have an old antique baseball bat leaning against the wall near the front door, and I’m fairly certain she would use it.
As I sit and watch her today, uncharacteristically sleeping soundly during daylight hours, I pray for better days ahead for her. And more Ermalator stories and more incredible photos. And I pray that I can carry on her legacy of strength, her silent resolution, her “ermalator-ness.”
On this Mother’s Day, she is the one giving the greatest gift: As I look forward and backward and try to focus only on today, I vow to hang on to that resilience, that matter of factness about life. “It is what it is.” And we must move forward with all the grace, and calm, and endurance of the Ermalator. And we too, may see 93.
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| Happy Mother's Day!! |
