Lifelong Learning

My mother passed away on Monday, May 30^th. She was 92. Those of you who have lost your mothers, you know it takes some time to process the sadness of this event, regardless of whether it was sudden or had been expected. My Mum had been sick in the final year of her life, so her passing was at last a blessing.

A day or two afterward, I was making the bed and had a thought about Mum. As I pulled the flat top sheet all the way up to the edge of the mattress I thought, “Mother showed me how to do this.”  It got me thinking about the things I’ve learned from her.

I learned to bake from my Mum. On Sunday afternoons she would make a dessert for Sunday dinner, plus some cookies, or brownies or one of her famous “slices” (aka cookie bars.) As a kid, I would kneel on a kitchen chair beside the counter and watch her to observe the method of measuring and mixing.

We cooked together as I got older.  When I got home after school during my high school years, we’d watch The Galloping Gourmet on TV. He seemed so exotic – chopping garlic and onions, sautéing them in clarified butter, quaffing wine between chopping ingredients. We began to experiment with dishes that contained green peppers and other things we had never used before in our plain Prairie palate. Dad loved it. Thus began my lifelong love of cooking.

She loved to watch birds, especially the finches and warblers that braved the Manitoba spring and we’d look up their names in a Roger Tory Peterson guide. I still love to do this and maintain an impressive Life List. I got my love of having windows open on warm, breezy days from her. She taught me that laundry hung outdoors to dry smelled wonderful, although I have only rarely done this since moving from our family home. These are all little things that will remind me of her. The larger lessons are there as well.

Certainly I carry my parents’ values and traits, as we all do. There are some that I am proud to own and others that I have endeavored to move beyond – with variable success. Some characteristics emerge at unguarded moments and Ken will tell me that I sounded like my mother just then.

On my second to last trip to Winnipeg to see Mum, which was in April, I picked up a book at the Dayton airport by Maya Angelou, called “Letters to my Daughter.” Being authored by such a prestigious American poet, writer and lecturer, Angelou’s words, I felt sure, would have some meaning for me.

One of her essays is about the loss of loved ones. She asks, “What legacy was left that can help me in the art of living a good life?” I’m certain that there will be many legacies from my Mum that I will realize as time goes along.  One of the lessons of her dying, however, was kindness. It was demonstrated by the wonderfully caring nurses, aides and doctors in the hospital’s palliative care unit, and Mum, being so grateful to them, was kind in return. She asked an aide one day what she could do for her.

Kindness came from those around me: my husband, Ken who steadfastly supported me and never flinched when I traveled to Winnipeg so frequently. My sister-in-law Donna, who shared her experience as a home-care and palliative care nurse to talk me through all the stages to expect in the journey. Her caring helped enormously and gave me courage and hope. And my dear friend, Brenda, who is also a nurse, visited Mum all through the last year and even acted as a home care giver, who gave me safe haven and home-cooked meals when I traveled to Winnipeg, was always willing to help in whatever way she could, and who finally sat with my mother on the morning she died because I was not there. Such kindness and friendship is a blessing from God.

Maya Angelou’s poem on the death of a loved one moves me. I will probably read it at Mum’s memorial service.

Did I learn to be kinder,

To be more patient,

And more generous,

More loving,

More ready to laugh,

And more easy to accept honest tears?

If I accept these legacies of my departed beloveds, I am able to

say, Thank You to them for their love, and Thank You to

God for their lives.

I’m going to dry some laundry outdoors today.