The other morning, as I was organizing my daily allotment of herbal supplements I'm taking to support this diet, my mother's hands flashed before me. This happens from time to time, and it is always a bit spooky when it does.

I remember my mother's hands so well. They were small, squarish. She wore a simple wedding band on her ring finger on her left hand, and her Victoria Hospital graduation ring on her right hand ring finger. She was always so proud of being a "Vic Grad". I remember the physicality of her hands, but I also remember the quality of movement, the line of gesture, the repeated actions I witnessed those hands take, especially in the kitchen. Chopping veggies, kneading dough, washing dishes, peeling potatoes. Distributing meds.

Our huge country farmhouse was home to more than my parents, my two brothers and me. Being an RN, and needing to earn some money herself to support us, my Mom was able to house and supervise seven "patients" from the Ontario Hospital in St. Thomas. These were people with various cognitive or emotional challenges who were stable enough to live outside the institution yet not well enough to live completely independently. So there were actually 12 people in total in our house when I was growing up. Each of the "patients" had specific meds on a specific schedule and my mother would stand at the counter every day with all the little bottles and re-organize which pills were to be taken by which person at which time of day. There were a few very specific gestures, key movements, involved in this … a flick of the wrist, the angle of the bottle against the palm of her hand when shuffling a few pills out, lining the bottles up to the left or right to keep them organized. Her movements were tight and efficient.

I wouldn't judge my hands to be "small" but in many other ways I see the shape, the gestures – both inherited. I wear two rings as well, but on different fingers than my mother adorned. But when I move my hands a certain way, there is a flash of metallic light that emphasizes the movement and for a brief instant I see my mother's hands before me – task-oriented, purposeful.

These were the hands that fed me, herded me from one activity to another, chastised me, taught me, comforted me, healed me. I'm on my own now, and have been for a long time, in looking after myself on so many levels. From time to time, it feels like my Mom reveals herself in me to – pardon the pun – lend a hand. It is reassuring and reminds me how much of ourselves we actually are carrying forward from the foundations laid by others.

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… when I was in pig-tails … 

Nah, no pigtails here. But if she were still around, my Mama would tell me "do not post to your blog after you've been drinking grappa". Of course, my Mama died in 1998, when blogging was just a twinkle in someone's eye. So the likelihood of her passing on this kind of wisdom seems rather remote.

My mother died, suddenly and unexpectedly, in early June that year. She had survived cancer (twice) and had just had surgery to repair some nerve damage in her wrists and was recovered enough to start bowling again. She wore white Reeboks, had just painted her bathroom pepto-bismol pink, and drove a bright blue Neon that her grandchildren referred to as "Grandma's sports car". She was proud of having mastered playing cribbage and other card games on the computer. She was just about to learn how to use the Internet, by which I mean that I was planning to head home late June to give her a few lessons on how to connect using dial-up, how to "surf the web" (a new term then), and how to send and receive e-mail.

What I would give to have archived e-mail from my Mom.

She was 74 when she died of an aortic aneurysm. Sometimes things happen so very fast. The actual blow-by-blow drama of these seven days is worth its own post … but that is not what is on my mind today.

Actually, I've been thinking about posting about my mother for ages. I can't imagine saying all I need to say about her in a single post. So this may be the first of many.

The things my mother taught me could fill a hockey arena. What fascinates me is the separation between the lessons I've integrated into the very fabric of my being, and the ones that I have to keep re-visiting. 

The number one all-time chart-topper lesson my Mom taught me is resourcefulness. Here is an example of how she did it: one evening I was craving a grilled cheese sandwich in the worst way. I would have been about nine, I think. I must have been having growing pains or something. There were 12 people in our house, which made the possibility of actually having some cheese in the house to make a sandwich from a bit touch-and-go. We lived on a farm, so, if we were low on cheese, it wasn't a matter of running out to the store and fetching more. Tentatively, I went to the fridge to check out the cheese situation. There was a sliver of cheddar – the cheese equivalent of a dribble of milk left in the bottom of the milk carton and the carton being placed back in the fridge in the hope that no one would notice. To my nine-year-old mind, there wasn't nearly enough cheese to even mention, let alone make a decent sandwich out of. I believe I pitched a small fit at this point.

Mom to the rescue. I remember she told me to hush my whining. She took two slices of bread and patiently, carefully, slowly sliced the remaining cheese into almost toothpick sized slivers. Easily enough cheese, once melted, to fill the space between two slices of bread. I'll never forget the magical transformation of this tiny hunk of cheese into exactly what I had been craving. It was a loaves-and-fishes moment and I remember feeling the nine-year-old version of humbled.

I've started two businesses, rescued nearly defunct projects, and directed plays based on this moment in time. For me, the message was "work with what you have – don't waste time whining about what you don't have". More pragmatic than "when life hands you lemons, make lemonade" … but in the same ballpark … or arena. I hear myself saying things like "well, we'll make it work somehow" or "what have we got to work with?" and I realize I'm channelling my mother. And I'm ok with that. Sometimes I get cocky and I think I can pull off a project with the equivalent of kleenex, spit and bailing twine … usually it works out. Focusing more on the people and their skills rather than the "things" one does or does not have access to has distinct advantages. So does applying a lesson from another great teacher, Captain Kirk, and his rule-changing approach to the Kobayashi Moru. Always a winner, that one.

I have so much now, in terms of "things". I feel very blessed, and yet, if all my "things" went away tomorrow, I know I'd be ok. I'd start again … by making grilled cheese with almost no cheese. I've done it before, so many times.

Is grilled cheese becoming a theme in this blog? Hm … sorry about that … 🙂 … ok, I've had too much grappa to really be coherent in discussing my mother's lessons … there will be more to follow …

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