Harriet

Today is my mother's 91st birthday.

Most women have a complicated relationship with their mother, and I am no exception.  The older I have gotten, the more simplified my relationship with my mother has gotten, until I've grown to the place I am today, and I simply love her.

Mom was never easy.  She had high standards for us, and she could be stingy with praise.  I remember thinking she was mean many times when I was growing up, and thinking of my dad as the good guy.  Now I realize Mom allowed Daddy to be the good guy.  One parent has to be the disciplinarian, and Mom took on that role.  Mom was the cop, and Daddy was the social worker.  It takes strength, courage and love to choose the harder role in parenting children, and Mom just did it because it was the right thing for her and Daddy, and the right thing for us kids.

Mom suffered with anxiety for apparently all of her life.  After her stroke, and as her ordinary and Alzheimer's dementia advanced, the anxiety became impossible to hide.  On one level, I always knew it was there, but on most levels, it was easy to just pass it off as moodiness or neediness.  I feel terrible that I didn't recognize the root anxiety and support her more.

One of the symptoms of that anxiety that I only recently recognized relates to swimming.  We had a swimming pool in the backyard from the time I was about five or six.  First a three foot pool, and then a four foot pool.  We had to wear life jackets in the pool unless Daddy was home, because Mom didn't know how to swim.  The yard was fenced, but the pool had a second fence inside the yard, with a padlock, and the key was up high in the cabinet.  Having that pool in the yard heightened Mom's anxiety, but she found ways to cope so that we could have a pool.

My dad was her anchor, he was the only one who could calm her down when she got really upset.  Just having him near created an ease and a calm in Mom.  The years that Mom took care of Dad as his Alzheimer's advanced appeared to be the least anxious of her life.  Her total focus in those years became giving Dad the best quality of life that she possibly could.

Mom showed up throughout my life.  She was a troop leader for Juniorettes, the littlest Junior Catholic Daughters (kind of like Girl Scouts for Catholics).  She was a chaperone when we were in Drum and Bugle Corps.  She cooked endless spaghetti dinners for fundraisers, and Chinese food for silent auctions.  She and Daddy hosted two birthday parties a year, a December party for my brother and older sister, and a May party for me and my younger sister.  And the epic New Year's Eve and Saint Patrick's Day parties.

Mom hosted a bridal shower for all my cousin's and their future wives.  She made the fanciest food!  Finger foods that were so exotic to my child self.  Rolled sandwiches on colorful bread, deviled eggs, cream cheese and walnuts on date/nut bread.  It was an elegant feast to me.

Mom managed her anxiety through putting others first.  When I look back at her life, it appears that when she was totally focused on other's and their comfort, it kept her anxiety in check.  What incredible focus and strength she had!

As she advances into dementia and there is less and less of Mom there to visit, parts of her remain.  She still smiles at people.  She still loves Irish music.  She still holds your hand.

I can grouse with the best of them on the things my parents, especially my mother did wrong while I was growing up.

But I choose this instead.  I choose to remember a woman who loved deeply and whole heartedly.  A woman who was flawed, but kept on trying to be her best self.  A woman who fought demons we couldn't see, and kept them at bay by focusing on others.

Happy Birthday, Mommy.  I hope you know how very much you are loved, and how many lives are better because you were part of them.