SO PROUD TO BE HER DAUGHTER
Today marks the anniversary of the passing of my mother, Corinne. Goodness, what can I say about my mother? I didn’t anticipate how the loss of her energy and light would leave my life a little dimmer.
Mother was spunky. The definition of spunk is spirited. But if you go way back, it means “sponge or tinder” in Gaelic. In the Scottish Highlands, a person who had fought courageously without complaining was thought of as “catching fire” and was compared to bursting into flame like tinder. Therefore, it became popular to describe that someone as spunky.
Boy, could Mom give the energizer bunny a run for his money! I don’t know how she managed to recharge her batteries. She could type our papers all night on an old-fashioned manual typewriter, sew a dress for a choir concert, remodel a house, wheelbarrow dirt in the dark on one of many properties, and not miss a beat the next day.
My mother did not have an off button. She would meet a friend or a stranger and talk to them for an hour, at least. She’d find out all about them, their political leaning, their homelife, ancestry, perhaps they were a bit Norwegian and if they weren’t, she could find some. She would unearth their sorrows or their dreams. Then she would say something that would bring them to tears, but in a good way. She had the gift of inspiring people to be their best and leaving them with either a $20 dollar bill to quit smoking or encouragement to chase their dream. I loved that about my mom, not the talking part, that drove me crazy, but the ability to see potential in people and point it out to them.
Mom was raised by her father. She played the role of mother, taking care of her younger siblings, cooking, cleaning and being the responsible one. She told stories of biking to the candy shop to work before and after school, and eventually saving enough money to help buy her family a home. I have often wondered how my mother, who was more or less motherless, could turn into such an incredible mother herself. And who encouraged her along the way?
My mom would always say to me, “I’m proud of you.” Going through my mother’s letters to me, I found my 50th birthday card. I treasure what she wrote: “Never could I dream, looking at my precious baby born 50 years ago, that she would touch so beautifully so many lives. So proud of you, Lauri.” She always said that when our long-distance phone calls were at an end, “I’m so proud of you” to which I would always reply, “and I’m so proud of you, Mom.”
I am. Sometimes I was embarrassed at the constant talking and the unorthodox way in which she lived her life with no boundaries or guardrails, but in retrospect, she was simply one of a kind and a very special light in this world. I am so proud to be her daughter!
