Happy Mother’s Day
Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. Yesterday, I went to visit my Grandma and her sister, my Great Aunt Flo, partly for Mother’s Day, and partly because I miss them and haven’t seen them for awhile. We went to Marie Calendar’s, and they had strawberry pie ala’ mode for lunch, and we had a great time.
When we were back at the house visiting, the talk wound around to my mom, which it usually does, and how adventuresome she was. And Grandma asked me how much, if anything, I remembered about the homestead we lived on, outside of Fairbanks, Alaska, in 1970.
I remember the dogs…there was a sled team, which we didn’t use as a sled team, but who we cared for while their owners were away. It was their house, their car, their dogs. They were Samoyeds, and they were a lot of fun and made us feel safe.
I remember that we had electricity, though no running water, and no phone. So mom had to get water from a creek to wash the dishes. In the winter, she used a 30.06 shotgun to blow a hole in the frozen creek. We had a bear in our yard once, and another time a moose and her two calves. Neither is particularly safe, actually, if you’re a young mother out in the wilderness with your two young children, even if you do have a gun.
I told my Grandma about the time that we could have all died, if it hadn’t been for my brother. I thought she had heard this story before. She hadn’t. She kinda freaked out. My mom wrote the story to Maya once, when Maya was 4 or 5, and she posted it on her blog, but she never told my Grandma. I guess she knew it would freak my Grandma out. Don’t worry, Grandma’s OK now.
The story is about how my mom had a bad reaction once to some thyroid medication, and couldn’t get out of bed for several days. Not just didn’t feel like it, but COULDN’T get out of bed. I think she almost died. Because we were out on the homestead, and there was no phone to call for help, and it was the dead of winter, in Fairbanks, Alaska. The closest phone was 2 miles away. So there was no going for help. Did I mention that there was no forced air, that the only heat we had was a coal burning stove in the kitchen? That my 6 year old brother had to keep that coal burning stove going for several days until the medication worked its way through my mother’s system, and she could get out of bed and get in the car and to a doctor? Yeah. He says all he remembers is going back and forth across the threshold to the house with the bucket, with the little coal that a 6 year old can reasonably carry in it, and keep a fire going. I can’t imagine letting a 6 year old tend a fire by himself, can you? Let alone the worry and the cold and the responsibility he must have felt. But if your choice is that or freeze to death, yeah, I guess you let him tend the fire. Not that I think she was even conscious enough to know he was doing it. In addition, he kept us fed (us being him and me…I was 4), and kept me clean enough and occupied enough. Freaky, huh? I believe that after that we got rid of the coal burning stove and got a gas stove, which didn’t require so much hands on effort, but which ended up sucking quite often in its own right, and soon after that, we moved into town where there was water and phones and help if you needed it. Good thinking.
I think that experience affected Richard his whole life. In a good way. He knew (and we knew), that no matter what happened, he could take care of us. He also knows that sometimes, life is dangerous, and you have to step up and take care of those you love. Pretty amazing lesson to learn at 6.
So, Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there, even those of us who aren’t quite as adventurous as my mom was when she was 28, living in the wild with her two young children. I miss her every day.
8 Comments
Susan Hannum
Your mom sure sounds like an amazing person – I have been reading her blogs for a while now, and was so very saddened when she took ill and ultimately went home to her Maker. You have quite a lot of her in you, and it shines through your blog as well – Happy Mothers Day to you!!!
R
Mom actually used a 30.06 rifle to blow open the creek ice for washing water. We hauled water in from town for drinking water. But not for washing and bathing. And I remember that this event lasted almost three weeks, with cousin Tony coming out to see why we hadn’t been in town recently. (But I could be wrong. I don’t have a copy of mom’s story nor does this story seem to appear on her blog.)
My only clear memory of this is walking across the threshold between the garage and the winter porch (think airlock) over and over and over and over and over… again with just enough coal to cover the bottom of a galvanized steel bucket. And being angry that I couldn’t haul more at a time. The thing is, it was cold as hell outside and if the stove went out we would have died, so I had to haul enough coal every night to keep the stove burning while we slept. On top of having to keep us all fed on lukewarm food, bathed and dressed. Though I don’t remember those parts.
I brought up this story once in my college class on Greek mythology when we studied the story of Sisyphus. It lead to a very interesting discussion if memory serves.
-R
J
Three weeks? Gah. Mom probably kept taking the medication, then, hoping she would get better. But who knows. Thank goodness we didn’t run out of coal and/or food.
I fixed the post to say 30.06 shotgun. I seemed to remember it being a shotgun or a rifle, but then I thought, maybe it was a handgun…what the heck do I know, I was 4. 😉
Thanks, by the way, for saving our lives that winter. And yeah, must have seemed very Sisyphusian(?).
Mom did post it on her blog…but it’s in the form of the story she wrote for Maya years and years ago, so there isn’t even as much detail as I put here. http://mayagranny.blogspot.com/2007/03/richard-takes-care-of-them-all.html
Starshine
Happy Mother’s Day, Jules!!!
xo
apathy lounge
This tops any Mother’s Day story I could ever come up with. Homestead? Guns? Blowing a hole in ice? Near death via thyroid?? Crap, lady! You’ve led SOME life!
Ted
Every time I’ve heard this story, it was a rifle that your mom used to blow a hole in the ice. Real Annie Oakley stuff! And even though you guys were on the brink on that homestead in Alaska, it sure makes for a thrilling story.
Dad Who Writes
I don’t think it was Mother’s day in the UK but I really should take one of the children up to see my adoptive mother before its too late. Though she could have died by now and my bloody sister wouldn’t have told me.
But your mother and especially your brother. Hardcore. And you must be pretty tough too. I couldn’t imagine doing that.
Dea
Just wanted to let you know that I come to read your blog when I’ve been thinking of your mom. Thanks for continuing to write about her on occasion.