Our mom had some strict rules while bringing us up. I'm going to start with

MOM'S 10 COMMANDMENTS in the form of Late Night with David Letterman's Top 10:

10  Sit up straight.9  Elbows off the table8  Eat with your mouth closed and don't talk with your mouth full of food.7  Don't play with your food.6  You can choose one vegetable to NOT eat but finish everything else on your plate (remember, there are starving children in China)5  Pick up after yourself.4  Be polite.3  Don't interrupt.2  Use proper grammar, in writing and speaking.1  Send out Thank You notes promptly

Now, onto some thoughts from my perspective...

Sometimes I wonder if mom was just another mere mortal parent OR...if she was actually an enlightened guru, simply and silently waiting for me to see the light. It's the MYSTERY mom always had, at least in my eyes, and now I appreciate that mystery.

She pretty much left us to make major decisions on our own and quietly honored those choices. When I was a teenager, she listened to me babble on and on. I don't remember her giving me any advice, just being present.

I do dare to dream what it might have been like, what MOM might have been like, had she not had to work round the clock to keep the new version of our family intact. Maybe she would have continued her hiking with us and the Appalachian Mountain Club, gotten back to skiing, done more sewing and other creative activities. Who knows? What I do know is that I am awfully grateful she did have the strength, the will, and the commitment, to do what it took to keep the three of us together under one roof.

After she had moved on from 11 Fisher Street, out of a townhome in Penacook, and into her first senior independent community, she started to blossom socially. She had many neighbors and a little library to help keep in order. She became the person who gave rides to others without cars, the person who joined the bowling team after so many years away from the sport, and perhaps someone you could pop in on from time to time. Her Rolodex bulged at the seams, and, in true Anne fashion, the number of homemade greeting cards that she sent out grew - birthdays, holidays, anniversaries even.

She always had a way of stoicly dealing with the medical and other news that came her way. Everyone will agree she was not a complainer or a poor-me kind of person. She came across as an optimist, sometimes naive, reliable, very humble & modest, strong-willed, and academically intelligent and knowledgeable.

The three of us - mom, Jim and I - had some great vacations as kids and we helped one another develop our weird "Nutey" style of humor. It was such a blessing that mom, even though she had huge communication deficits in her last year, was able to still share her sense of humor. I like to think Jim and I kidnapped mom from Exeter Center, the last facility where she did her post-amputation rehab. In September 2022, Jim and I hatched the plan to scoop mom up and I would stay with her for several weeks in hopes that she would be able to once again live independently. With Jim at the wheel, mom next to him, and me squished in the back with a hodgepodge of clothes, various prosthetic and other medical devices, we peeled out of the Exeter Center driveway like bank robbers...or at least it's fun to think about it that way. The three of us were back together making mischief and enjoying it!

I think the feeling I had when first taking care of mom was the closest I could ever come to knowing what it's like to be a parent, where you have an unquestionable love for this other being, and you know that you're going to do your very best to take care of and love them. Suddenly, things like patience came to rest with me for as long as I needed it.

Mom became another person to me in her hour of need. One of the nights I was leaving her apartment, after I hugged her goodnight and told her "see you tomorrow," I looked back and she had rolled herself in her wheelchair to get ready to lock the door after me. She was in her old tattered nighty, fragile-looking, with her prosthetic already off and leg stump showing. I had to quickly get through the door so she didn't see me crying, feeling both in awe of her and a sort of motherliness for her, as if the roles had reversed.

During the last week I was with mom, I said to her "I bet you'll be glad to have your privacy and more of your own space again, huh," to which she replied, "NOooo, I LIKE having you around." Time stood still just then and nothing else mattered but her saying that to me!!!

A few random memories from earlier years:

She took advantage of her legal first name being Hester to go to a Halloween party as Hester Prinn from the Scarlet Letter. She wore a dark blue turtleneck with an A made from red tape. Somewhere around this time she may also have gone on exactly ONE date post-divorce!

She made an awesome banana bread & eggnog at Christmas, and pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving.

She only swore ONCE EVER, that I witnessed. While Jim and I sat lazily watching TV in the next room, she single-handedly took on a Do-It-Yourself project that involved building a false ceiling with a metal grid hung by string and patiently, carefully placing these panels within the grid. As you might imagine, after a while we heard some banging around noises followed by a very distinct, although not all that loud, "Shit!" Jim and I quietly looked at each other, just a little bit afraid of what might happen next.

Wrapping it up, she played the role of two parents, and she did it in a way that never let on how many sacrifices she had to make. I am such a well-rounded person because of the way she raised me.