Saint

Saint

“I think your mother’s a saint.”
 
My brother’s wife, Dianne, said that to me one day at their home in northern Idaho, back in September of 2004 when we had stopped there to visit. Shirley and I were on our way back to California from Glacier National Park, and we spent several days with them in Coeur d’Alene. The four of us had been talking, and my older brother George and I had been reminiscing about our family and growing up back in Connecticut. Her statement stayed with me, I thought about for it a long time afterwards. Dianne paints religious icons, and by her own account, she is conservative and traditional. I know that religion has played an important part in both their lives, and that it has not in mine. Yet, I mulled over her words because I felt she had said it as she meant it. Moreover, I wondered what words I would choose to describe my mom.
 
When I was young, my folks were not overly religious; I remember early catechism classes, and occasionally going to church with my dad. I always felt that my mom did not appreciate the way the church always seemed to have its hand out, especially at a time when they were struggling to raise three boys.
 
When I first returned home after the Army and a brief stint living in the West, my mother asked me what I was doing back in Manchester, and informed me that there was a big world out there to see and experience. Eventually, I took her words to heart. As for my brother and his wife, they embarked on a daring and adventurous life by leaving Connecticut and homesteading a cabin up in the wilderness of northwestern Montana, where the land, and the people that inhabited that land, molded them over the years. They carved a life out of that wild and challenging landscape, raised a family, and became members of that select congregation that lived a frontier life out on the edge of civilization.
 
My mother, in addition to all her work around the home, became a self-taught artist. She started out making mink-trimmed pincushions that she gave as gifts to the mothers of our friends. She went on to develop her own style with threads and fabrics, and she eventually created incredible impressionistic works of art, Monet-like landscapes in threads, full of depth and emotion, and unlike anything I have ever seen. She was active in the local artist’s guilds, and was elected into the Manchester Arts Hall of Fame back in my hometown of Manchester, Connecticut. 
 
Her viewpoint was wide and all encompassing; she loved people and saw a basic goodness in life. She lived a simple and unostentatious life, and although I’m sure she harbored hidden dreams and ambitions, she made her family feel that we were the center of the universe. Although she sacrificed so much during her life for all of us, she never asked to be repaid. On every birthday and at Christmas I received a card, and there was always a check enclosed signed by my father. In the 'Memo' entry of every check, written in my mother's hand, was a small image of a heart along with the words, "Love, Mother and Dad" written close by. She stuck with my father through thick and thin, even when he became irritable and difficult (which seemed like most of his life to me), and I know that he loved her deeply.
 
I was examining some pictures of mother's work when the thought first came to me. She always had a wide-ranging psychologist’s eye. Not only did she see a lot, she took a great deal of it in. Her work was beautiful and ambiguous; there was plenty of room for each individual to find meaning in it. It was at that moment that I became aware of my mother’s greatest gift. Through the years, amid all my successes and failures, my travels to distant jobs, she always knew exactly what I needed to hear. Whether it was a gentle chiding, words of hope and encouragement, or the clear warning of a word to the wise, she always changed her own viewpoint to come at mine with thoughts germane to the moment, something to pay attention to, something to heed. It was never a lecture, and her words were always couched in love. She saw into everything, and changed the tone and tenor of her thought to benefit me.
 
I can’t speak for the rest of my family and I have no idea how my mother related to George and Dianne, but to me, my mother was like a chameleon. It was never about her and the challenges she faced. She wanted me to enjoy life and she encouraged me to go out and live it, to become something special. When we talked, she changed her color and point of view as needed; this allowed me access to her greatest gifts: her love, creativity, patience, and tolerance. She never once mentioned the word ‘god’ to me, nor talked about religion.
 
If all of this makes her a saint, so be it.  

August 2008
Los Angeles