My mother was 5’3”, physically fragile as a little bird, but emotionally stronger than anyone I’ve ever known. For most of her life, she had MS (multiple sclerosis.) Her symptoms were hidden from the rest of the world until the last few years of her life, and she died a week shy of her 82nd birthday, a few years ago.
When I think of her, though, I remember her laugh: she had a hilarious sense of humor, phenomenal energy and a real zest for life. She sewed like a couturier seamstress, and made all of my and my siblings’ clothes, including coats, when we were growing up. She cooked every breakfast, lunch and dinner every day of our lives, and once we were all school age, she taught, and worked as chairman of an English department at a high school for years, until she retired. She was up before 6am and never went to bed until at least midnight, and often later.
I’ve never met anyone else who was as well-read as she was. I could mention any obscure book I’d hear about and she’d have read it. I used to enjoy discussing New Yorker articles with her and anything at all that was in the New York Times. And she had a huge working vocabulary. I say “working” vocabulary because there’s a difference between knowing the definition of words and using them in your everyday conversations. My mother used them.
She was one of those people who had to do two things at once. I am perfectly content to sit and chat with a person, relaxing. My mother had to iron while she’d chat, or knit little sweaters for the hospital pediatric wards, or do hand-sewing, or something. She would wash dishes while she was on the phone, cradling the phone against her ear.
Many nights I would visit and talk with her for hours. She would knit, and she made little cotton hand cloths she’d give to friends. She began to lose her ability in her hands, and so she began dropping stitches. Since she was a perfectionist, she would start over again. Eventually, without ever discussing it, she and I both realized she couldn’t knit any more. She would tease and say she’d “give this one to Sue,” because it was a reject. I was perfectly happy to have her rejects, because they were still pretty nice. Each week when I’d visit, I’d get more cotton knit cloths. Finally, she stopped making them all together, as she had lost the ability to use her left arm.
After she died, I found a big stack of those cotton cloths I’d saved in a basket. I was sad to think she was gone, but as I looked at each of them, I started sobbing, because with each one, it was as if I was seeing in front of me a physical manifestation of her deteriorating ability.
She never once complained about having MS. In fact, she once said to me, “I’m so lucky that I don’t have cancer, Sue.” (This, despite the fact that she could no longer walk, use her left arm, or even swallow food without it being pureed.)
This Sunday is Mother's Day and I will think about her with the greatest love and affection. She was a wonderful mom.
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