When it comes to eating right and exercising, there is no "I'll start tomorrow." Tomorrow is disease.
~V.L. Allineare
"Ah, the vicissitudes of life..." my mom used to say, and then sigh. This was her equivalent to "That's life. What are you gonna do?" At a yard sale my mother found a slightly tattered fabric hanging which said, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." and she immediately adopted this as her motto and her "banner". Even though she moved an average of once every two years, this banner went with her and found its rightful place of honor in each of her homes.
At her memorial service, each of her children and grandchildren were asked to write a little something for the take-home program. The same two things about my mom seemed to be missed the most: her ferocious love for her family and her Marine-like ability to adapt, overcome and improvise. My mom would never accept the role as the victim, and when less-than-desirable situations and circumstances befell her, she'd get up, brush the dirt off and fight to make the best of it.
When she was a child, my mom's family was forced to flee their homes as the Japanese invaded the Philippines during World War II. She remembered the horrors she witnessed and endured, and even though she bore several shrapnel scars (including the fragment lodged close enough to her spine to keep the surgeons from wanting to operate) and lost many family members to war atrocities, she never gave in to bitterness or self pity.
My mom was an exceptional woman who spent a year at Juliard and then went on to UCSF to earn her Masters in double majors. She raised four children single-handedly, could put Martha Stewart's creativity to shame and handled all the repair and landscaping in our house.
I've yet to meet a woman as innovative and multi-faceted as my mom. With her as my example, I grew up with little tolerance for weak, whining women. But mom had one weakness that eventually took her life: her inability to take care of herself first. Mom died suddenly of a massive coronary. That was five years ago, but it still feels like yesterday.
As far back as any of my siblings can remember, my mom had always said, "I'm not afraid of dying." This was, she said, because she had been pronounced dead once in her life already, and it didn't scare her at all. During the war my mother lost a toe while fleeing the soldiers. The wound became infected and my mother developed lockjaw. Only one doctor was brave enough to stay and tend to her. When she stopped breathing, she remembered seeing the light, the dead relatives and everything else you hear about in the movies. She also saw her father, who had been at Pearl Harbor when it was bombed. The weird thing was, word hadn't gotten back to my grandmother as to the status of my missing grandfather. This was the way my mother learned of his death. I keep thinking someday all of this will make a great, albeit heart-wrenching story.
So, almost as if to prove that she wasn't afraid of death, my mother lived her life the way she wanted to. She ate what and when she wanted, went where she wanted and smoked and laughed and enjoyed her family. She died at the young age of 65, only five weeks after my dad died from cirrhosis of the liver. He also lived like there was no tomorrow. Now my youngest child will never know these two amazing people.
I like to flatter myself and think that I have a lot of my mom's courage in me, but the truth is, the fear of the unknown scares me more than I'll ever reveal to my family. I'm brave enough to sit in front of an audience and sing with a lone guitar, but I'm too afraid to live in a neighborhood that's far from an emergency room. I'm brave enough to put myself between my family and anything that could harm it, but I'm too afraid to keep driving to my destination when I know I've forgotten my cell phone at home.
But the biggest difference between my mother's courage and mine is that I'm not afraid to face the truth about my body.
I try to learn all I can so that I can apply all I can. I want to know what the lab tests say so that I can do what I must do to stay healthy. I'm not afraid to face the responsible food choices or the workout regiment or the meditation and moderation needed to ensure a longer life. I know that no one can guarantee me a longer life, but I've got to try to remember the number one reason that I want to be around longer: my loved ones. Both my mother and father left us way too soon and I don't want to do that to my kids. Not if I can help it--and I can. I want to live fully every day like my parents did, but I work to make sure there are many more of those days to be had. As a mom I'm always putting my needs last, as most moms are wont to do. What I need to remember is, my kids need me to last. Healthy moms make better moms.
So when life gives me lemons, I make lemonade. And then I find a comfy chair and put my feet up and enjoy my lemonade, with a lemon slice and some Splenda, thank you.
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