Smart Moms

My mother was the smartest woman in the world. Of course, I didn’t realize this until I had kids of my own. Had I actually listened to her when I was younger, I could have saved myself a lot of trouble and heart ache.

My Mom’s early life was a nightmare. She was the oldest girl out of ten kids. Two of her siblings died very young. They were dirt poor and scratched out a living as migrant farm workers. Both of her parents were alcoholics, and all the kids lived with the most horrible abuse you can imagine. She started running away from home when she was nine years old. By the time she was fifteen, she ran far enough away that she wasn’t caught, and started living for herself.

She had almost no formal education, and didn’t get her first toothbrush until she was fourteen. But she was smart. She was canny and streetwise, and managed to successfully lie about her age and find work. By the time she married my father and started raising kids, she had done pretty well for herself.

The work she found was pretty unorthodox, and people still give me funny looks when I tell people about her. She worked in bars – first as a cocktail waitress, then as a bartender, then as a manager. She was running a bar in Alaska when she met my father. Alaska in the sixties was not as populated as it is now, and was still very much a no-man’s land. Being a woman in Alaska meant that you had to be tough, inventive, and have a sense of humor about life. She was one hell of a poker player, and once won $18,000.00, a cabin, and a Jeep in a poker game. And she made the guy who lost pay up. When she left Alaska, she sold him back his Jeep and his cabin.

She was determined that we wouldn’t grow up ignorant. I remember her setting out plates, cups, and silverware for a seven course meal and making us practice how to eat. We practiced how to speak without a southern accent, because she didn’t want people to assume we were stupid because of the way we spoke. We grew up all over the world, and my Mom made sure that we ate where the locals ate, shopped where they shopped, and visited shrines and historical places so that we understood a culture other than our own. We witnessed first hand the most incredible poverty and managed to grow up appreciating what we had.

Every year at Christmas, Mom would “adopt” a family she’d never met (and would never meet) and we would buy things for them. Not just toys, but clothes in all different sizes for all different seasons so that everyone in the family would have something to wear all year. We’d pick out a pantry full of food, and then buy gift certificates so that they could shop for perishables or just some of their favorites. She also picked out toys, jewelry, make-up, purses – you name it. She wanted to make sure that everyone was thought of. We all knew that this would mean less for us, but we didn’t care. We had more fun shopping for strangers than we did shopping for each other.

We weren’t rich, but we were comfortably middle class. My father was an officer in the Air Force, so we had everything we needed and most of what we wanted. My Mom, however, would take jobs cleaning houses after people moved out and would make us help. We’re talking some serious dirt. She never paid us, either, but made sure that we understood that hard work really was its own reward sometimes.

My Mom was our champion when we were unfairly treated, and our worst nightmare when we wronged someone. I stole a candy bar once, and she caught me. I was six. She not only made me walk back to the store, return the candy and apologize, she made me work every day in this man’s store all summer so that I wouldn’t forget the lesson. I swept and mopped floors, dusted shelves, restocked, cleaned windows, and cleaned bathrooms. Was I ever sorry for stealing that piece of candy!

I was the world’s biggest tomboy, but she made me take tap and ballet lessons. For every sport I played, I had to pick a “girl” activity for balance. I was smarter than most of the kids in my classes, and wherever we lived the school teachers wanted to place me ahead a few grades. Mom said, “No.” She let them place me in advanced reading, writing, math, and science classes, but kept me with kids my own age for social studies, art, and music.

My father was killed in a crash when I was fifteen, and my brother and sister were twelve. We moved to the farm my father owned and tried to put our lives back together. Mom was faced with three teenagers at home, had no formal education, and hadn’t worked in fifteen years. She studied, had me teach her some algebra, took the ACT and went to college.

For the next few years we did everything we could think of to make that woman crazy. We stayed out too late, drank underage, drove fast, dated people who were no good for us. She hung in there until we all moved out and were on our own.

She started getting sick the same year my Dad died, and managed to hide it from us until we all graduated from high school. Then she started going down hill - fast.

She was in so much pain that some days she really shouldn’t have been out of bed. But she got up anyway. She went to class. It took her eight years and she graduated in a wheelchair, but she finished with honors. She got her degree before any of her kids, and we had been given every advantage. She knew that she would never be able to work, but she finished college anyway. It was that important to her.

When my first marriage fell apart and I was a single mom with two babies, the first person I called was my Mom. She was so sick that some days she couldn’t take care of herself, but she made sure that the kids and I had a place to live while I went to school. There were days when I was ready to give up. I was working two jobs, going to school more than full time, trying to take care of kids and Mom, and trying to get my life back together. Every time I thought about quitting, I would take a look at my Mom and realize that my life wasn’t so tough. If she could do it in a wheelchair, then I could certainly do it without one.

My Mom died when I was eight months pregnant with my last child. That was over three years ago. I still miss her so much.

She taught me to be strong when I was weak, and she taught me to have faith when I was hopeless. She taught me to give help when I could, and she taught me how to accept help when I needed it.

She taught me that balance is more important than focus, and that moderation is better than excess. She also showed me that being intelligent doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re smart.

She taught me how to pick myself up and dust myself off when life knocked me down. She taught me to laugh when that happens, and not to lose the lesson. She taught me that being able to laugh at myself feels so much better than being able to laugh at someone else.

She taught me that people are almost always both more and less than what they may seem, and often at the same time. She taught me that every person has pride, and to trample someone’s pride will put you in danger.

But most of all, she taught me to be smart. Not to fear making a mistake, but to fear not learning the lesson. Not to cripple myself or my kids, but to teach them by example how to be strong and how to be brave. And she was smart enough to teach me by any means necessary.

Thanks, Mom.