She was an immigrant, accompanying her new husband in search of the American Dream. Eighteen years his junior, she spoke minimal English and left every relative across the Atlantic.
The Dutch are a stalwart, optimistic people. She was no exception. Following my dad to California, then New York, then Mississippi, my mother was the driving force in realizing the dream of owning a dairy farm.
She raised kids, made hay, and milked cows. She taught my brothers and me to work hard, speak Dutch and be tough.
Mom was tough. She recounted for me falling asleep, as a child of 6, to the sound of distant bombing and waking up with a dusting of snow on her bed that had slipped through the small cracks in the roof of the old farmhouse.
She recalled seeing the German soldiers standing guard in the streets after the May 1940 invasion of the Netherlands.
The second of six children, she was further toughened by the death of her father during her youth. She was his girl, helping Jan, sitting next to him in the wagon, taking the milk to Rijswijk to sell.
Her father’s death necessitated the search for farm help. My father, a city boy of Den Haag applied his energy to the farm and his attention to the girl. So, they married and emigrated with suitcase in hand and expectation in heart.
A strong woman, 6-feet tall, mom was an able helpmate, managing home, family and work enough for two men.
I watched her load square hay bales, lift equipment, and work all hours of the day and night. A unique breed, she was.
She was ever productive, meticulously on task. She was meticulous in general, requiring us to leave our half-eaten apples on the kitchen counter for her inspection, along with our frequently burned toast. She would finish off the apple and scrape the toast, not wasting, remnants of World War II frugality.
Mom was a fighter. Persistent pain and leg wounds were her constant companions, sapping at her strength.
How often did I watch her dress and wrap wounds before heading out to the barn to go one more round with the Holsteins?
After decades of dome paste dressings, innumerable ibuprofen tablets, and a few surgeries, the amputation happened in October 2001.
Not to be outdone, she was back in the milk barn the following April, prosthetic in place. Over the last 14 years, she acquired an assortment of prosthetics. She had go-to-town legs and barn legs. They stood at attention along the bedroom wall.
Mom was stubborn. The last few years saw her slowing down some.
Reason reigned when she decided she would not actually “milk” but busy herself with the myriad chores required to run an operation.
This past summer she bemoaned “not getting anything done” and commented on how she just wasn’t hungry much lately.
Late October mom presented in the ER with vomiting. A week later we got the cancer diagnosis. Mom pressed on with chemotherapy.
When her hair started to fall out, she matter-of-factly told the nurse on duty to shave her head clean rather than deal with messy hair on the bed.
She never hinted at losing the battle, confident in her ability to power through the obstacle, like one more hurdle in the track ahead of her.
My time with her during her final eight weeks was defined by her giving me tasks to perform. There was no heart-to-heart mother/daughter talk. No warm farewells. Just tasks.
Nursing duties to ensure comfort. But her intestines succumbed to the intruder. Amid crooning renditions of “The Christmas Song,” clamoring Salvation Army bells, and ceaseless holiday commercials, I watched my mother waste to nothing at all.
Drives north with the sun on my left cheek and drives south with deer grazing in moonlight served as opportunities to ponder this experience we call life.
Mom was not ready to die: She had things to do. She had drawers to organize, grandchildren to influence, a farm to tend. She wasn’t finished.
Had she lived well? How does one measure such a thing?
What do we leave here when our bodies return to dust?
As I mused over the frail, fainting form of my mother, I realized she indeed was leaving much.
She left fortitude, aspiration and perseverance. In her wake lay commitment, strength and vision. How can I honor her life? How can we, the living, take on the task of memorializing the dead?
Perhaps we could take on, build upon, their character. In days of trial, call upon fortitude and perseverance. In seasons of drought, claim aspiration and vision. In years of long duty, rest in strength and commitment. How slow is one day, and yet how swift is one year. Oh that we may learn to live.
Let us be busy with living, seizing the moments.
I am reminded of the old hymn “Work, for the Night is Coming,” my mother’s theme song. “Give every flying minute something to keep in store; work for the night is coming, when man works no more.”
Incurably practical, mom’s final act, in lieu of flowers, is that donations be made to the school her kids graduated from and some of her grandchildren attend now. No fancy coffin, no dressed in her best, no lavish exit. It was just never about her.
Desiree’ Wilson is a former registered nurse and current homeschooling mom. She lives in Steens with her husband and their four children. Her email addresss is [email protected].
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