It’s been a year since my mother passed away. I’ve smiled through my work, even when I often felt like curling into a ball with a blanket and crying. But somehow, like most who lose their parents, I got through it. The pain is lifting, though the loss remains.
I’ve been thinking about one of the many lessons my mom taught me: doing meaningful things can be hard. For me, it encapsulates this past year.
In sorting through her papers, I could see it so clearly. She was the kind of person who didn’t look for a way around adversity. She thought her way through it.
As a young girl, upon learning that her cousin was fighting in World War II, she spent 3 1/2 years selling war bonds and collecting chewing gum to send overseas.
As a young parent, when she discovered that our elementary school textbooks failed to tell the truth about how Americans had treated indigenous people, she didn’t just complain. She formed a committee to get the books changed.
Later in life, when she wanted to ensure her own financial independence, she became a realtor.
If there were a problem, whether it was helping someone finance a property or navigating a puzzle of doctors for a health issue, she would sit down with a piece of paper, sketch things out, and find an intelligent way forward.
She was also extraordinarily organized. In her 80s, one of her friends taught herself Excel, and at 92, she was using spreadsheets to track her tax deductions.
Even as macular degeneration began to steal her eyesight, she found innovative tools to magnify documents or read aloud the words she could no longer see.
She was unstoppable in the most practical and inspiring ways.
What a great example you provided, Mom.
Over this past year, I’ve borrowed that lesson from her. I didn’t go around my grief. I didn’t turn back, but I went through it.
I kept serving clients, whom I adore, presented at retreats, and finished the book I promised her I’d write.
And because I also promised her I’d write another book, a children’s book about the animals in my backyard (Gary the Groundhog, currently excavating an underground maze, and Mrs. Katz, the cat who appears on our doorstep every spring ), that’s the next one I’ll find my way through.
