Four years ago today, my mom died.
As the youngest child of Icelandic
immigrants raised in rural British Columbia through the Thirties and Forties,
she was resilient. She saw the privations of the Great Depression echo in her
small farming community and saw the Second World War sweep her oldest brothers
off to the Pacific Theatre. She lost her father at fourteen, and her mother at
twenty-one. In a time when most women were homemakers, she worked in shops
through her teens and by twenty, had completed college and taught her first
elementary class. She would continue teaching for the next forty years. In an
era when most women were married by nineteen, she didn't settle down until she
found a man that she "couldn't push around." She was thirty. She
didn't have children for almost another decade. And in all this, she saw
nothing remarkable. Maybe because of her Icelandic roots, maybe due to her
natural humility.
Mom was a true lady. Perhaps she was just a
product of her era, but she never complained and I rarely heard her speak ill
of anyone. Mom didn’t believe in raising her voice. She stood straight, dressed
well, and had lovely handwriting. When she spoke she sounded straight out of a
movie from the Fifties. I only once heard her drop the F-bomb in a heated
argument- and when she did I dropped my glass of orange juice in shock. (She
was prone to saying "oh, shit!" though, whenever she forgot
something, which was a lot.) She was an avid reader, and by the age of three we
knew that the best time to ask for and receive permission to do just about
anything, or go just about anywhere was when she had her nose buried in a good
novel. She instilled a love of reading
in her both her children, and now that I have my own kids, I understand – we book-addicts
will say anything to get the kids to leave us alone long enough to finish the
chapter.
She was stubborn, too, but arguing with Mom was like punching a
pillow. She would listen calmly and attentively, then go do her own thing her
own way regardless. The only time she could be swayed was when the argument was
political or social in nature, and throughout her life I saw her let go of a
lot of outdated notions about race and sexuality. One misconception that she
held onto for a really long time was that all police everywhere were entirely
good people, and she wasn't able to let that go until she herself was bullied
into putting down her pregnant dog, which under provocation had snapped at a
child. "I didn't think the police would ever be like that, be so threatening,"
she said to me. I remember giving her an incredulous look and telling her that
I had known it since I was twelve. "I know," she responded a little
sadly, "I guess you grew up faster than I did." She was sixty-seven.
Of course, no one is without her faults. She was almost aggressively
absent-minded and chronically late. She forgot to pick us up from Girl Guides on more
than one occasion, and only noticed when my father came home and asked where
the kids were. We never panicked though, because we assumed she was just later
than usual. Her parenting style can best be described as benign neglect – I don’t
remember her ever helping me with my homework, or even checking that I’d done
it at all.. She never asked to meet our friends’ parents. She often skipped our
school events. Part of me thinks that as a primary school teacher, she was just
exhausted by little kids by the time she got home to her own. But we never
questioned that she loved us.
She drank too frequently, although she was never drunk. In the long and quiet unscheduled days
of retirement, it became clear that the two beer she’d always had when she
arrived home in the evening was not a choice, but a need. She did eventually
conquer it though, and her smoking habit as well.
She could tell a long rambling story about nothing for hours, and
get snippy when we tried to get her to the point. She lived most of her life in
a styrofoam bubble where nothing bad ever happened, and if it did, it had
better have the good taste not to let itself be discussed in her hearing. I
have slowly come to the realization that she found the experience of moving
through a violent and unpredictable world to be profoundly upsetting. She was about as far from sex-positive as one
can possibly be, and the only time I ever heard her say anything on the subject
was to say that she “tried it twice and didn’t like it.” I have one older
sister. (Which was fortunate, because I
had a whole lot of bizarre notions about the birds and the bees that needed
dispelling.)
What can I say? She had a lead foot on long drives, occasionally
smacked me for sassiness, and gave advice like “Sometimes it’s easier to ask
for forgiveness than permission.” She taught my nephew the phrase “ass over
teakettle” and never forgot a birthday. She had the same three best friends
since eighth grade until her death, and she could beat anybody’s ass at Scrabble
or cribbage.
She was the best mother I could have had. Maybe she wasn’t perfect, but she was more than good enough. Being motherless is a particularly unmooring experience. I find I still need to ask her something almost daily. Who is that person in this old photo? Did I eat as slowly as Panda does? How much homework did we have in elementary school, and what grade did it start? And am I doing okay at the mothering thing?
Eventually you find a new normal, but it's never the normal you knew. And I guess it has to be this way, has always been that way. I'll be raising a glass of red to you tonight, Mom; I miss you.
