Karen, Age 51
My Mom
My mom is resilient. She is able to start up, restart, keep going. I know her life hasn’t been what anyone would call ‘easy’. But when I watch her pick up and begin again, I’m full of admiration.
She started out with what I would call a terrible mismatch with my dad. When I look at them today, I wonder how they managed 20 years together. It was rocky, but even with a very strong, almost overbearing man, my mother let herself push through. Against all odds, she applied for and was accepted at college when he was overseas. I remember her studying during my late elementary and beginning of middle school years. She was studying art, which has always been her passion – even today. Late at night, she was putting together a sculpture of stacked V’s, awkward angles but balanced and proud – red, white and blue. I still love many of the sculptures she made that now adorn her house. Watching her, I learned that studying and putting in the hours makes a difference, especially when it’s your passion.
We were sitting around the table one day when we realized the date and that my parents had missed their 20th anniversary. That was right before the marriage ended and my mother began her journey on her own. She had been primarily a housewife up to that time. I was in my final years of high school. Though she had obtained a masters degree, finding a job was a challenge. She began with a portrait studio – the ones that provide pictures for families in those po-dunk towns at the five and dime? Ben Franklin, K-Mart, etc. All of sudden she was driving across the county, setting up and making a living. She covered the western territory! Arizona to Alaska. What a trip!
Then she landed a teaching job and suddenly she’s selling all her furniture and moving to Yerington, NV and then Prosser, WA. Time flits around, the end of second marriage, study abroad in Mexico and France. And suddenly she’s applying for a job with the Department of Defense and on her way to Germany. She spent some time teaching and volksmarching there and then into the International School system teaching art in Zambia, Africa.
I’m sure that she struggled with loneliness. But she has always been a trooper. My husband, brother and I visited her in Zambia. On the way in to a marvelous tent camp called Tena-Tena, my mom was bitten by a tse-tse fly. The next morning she was swollen and ill. Yet she continued to walk and travel with us on safari. I look at pictures now and wonder how she managed! We called her ‘Rocky’ and just kept going. Kids! Seriously, I don’t remember her complaining at all – but she used all the immodium we brought!
After several years there, she returned to the states. She was living with her mom and then near her mom, and then close enough to visit with her mom. Those years, I think, were God given. She built a deep relationship with grandma that hadn’t been there before. It was frustrating and challenging, but loving and selfless at the same time.
It was during this time, shifting through a couple of romances, she found John. Mom and John were together when Savannah, my daughter, was born in ’94. They moved to Florida, and even moved grandma, too. They had a wonderful time together, flying to the beach for lunch, dinner clubs and jet setting around Florida.
Last Christmas, we celebrated John’s life and the 16 years they spent together. When we left, I was encouraging her to take a trip with her friend Darlene to Hilton Head. It’s almost Christmas again. My mother did go on that trip to Hilton Head and to several bridge retreats, has a cruise planned at Thanksgiving and might find a spot to visit with us in December! She’s sold the furniture again, re-decorating and hanging her pictures throughout the house. I can’t wait to see how she shines through once again.
70 and still going strong. What an inspiration!