Phenomenal Woman

I turn my skis and face directly into the wind. Deliberately. I know this spot. I am strong.

I come from a strong line. My mom blew the lid off of amazing again this week. I can’t find the words to describe her. I’ll use hers…

He didn’t want to give in to using the diapers and so every time he had to go to the bathroom, he’d kick and groan and move his legs to the edge of the bed. We had to put our hands on him and hold him and soothe him. “It’s all right, Darry. Go to the bathroom. We’ll clean you up. We’ll take care of you. We're here.”

She watched him through the nights, through the days, staying at his side while others rotated in and out. She sat with his 14 year old granddaughter and later marveled at how much she learned from her. She lead visitors up to see him, helped them to say good-bye, sang and talked. She administered rectal medications and cleaned up after his body rejected them or bled out cancerous clots. She sat, she absorbed, she gave. She was steady. She is a matriarch, a woman in full. A work of art, of wonder, of beauty.

She sat with him on the last night, watched his breathing grow more labored and his struggles to get out of bed become more futile, weaker. She awakened his wife and phoned his children. She cleaned his body one last time. When the last son arrived, she left the room. On two replaced knees, she traversed the steps down to the living room. She lay on the couch and caught an hour’s sleep as he died.

In the morning there would be laundry and food preparation. In the morning, she would fasten the clasp of her sister-in-law's wedding pearls so that she could wear them to the visitation.

I am wide-eyed as this story pours out of her mouth in a stream of talk. She is utterly exhausted, curled up in the recliner. She tears up at points, looks down at gnarled, arthritic hands, pauses, but goes on. She shares the intimate details of his failing health and his eventual death, and in so doing, she is sharing his life. And hers. I see and I hear the courage of one woman, her wisdom, her steadiness, the gravity she provided this week to a family – not even her blood relatives, but those of my father. They knew that they could orbit her. They consulted her, listened to her, trusted her judgment.

She was never even a nurse. She dropped out of nursing school to marry my dad. To move to a farm and raise hundreds of cows and eight kids.

When I turn my face into the wind and feel that familiar comfort, it is to say: I can't touch my mom, but I have watched her. She lives an example. I see how it is done, I have witnessed her fortitude, her capacity. I stand on the shoulders of giants and persist. And admire a whole damn lot.


*Author's note: I am well aware that my title is taken from Maya Angelou's poem. Our phenomenal women are quite different though.