LADIES IN THE HOME

CAROL: Let me introduce our cast of characters. Jill, Karen and Linda live in The Home - all have M.S. Most of these stories came from them. Doris is Linda's mother, and doesn't even know she contributed to what we've written. Anita is Linda's older sister, who dropped in as we were telling tales. She knows she contributed.

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JILL:

When Kristin, my older daughter, was about six years old, she came to me while we were shopping one day and said she needed five dollars. Since that was a huge sum for a small child, I asked if she was sure she needed that much. She was firm, and wouldn't budge. Well, someone had to, so I did - I gave her the five dollars she asked for, and she disappeared for a while.

In the course of other things, I forgot about it.

Not long afterwards, for Mother's Day, Kristin presented me with a gift that she had kept hidden and then had wrapped all by herself. When I opened it, I found a doll. It was a little rag doll wearing a yellow checkered dress.

Across the front of the dress was a banner that said, "World's Best Mom!"

Kristin is now is now a teacher, a wife and a mother. I still have that little doll that she gave me so long ago!

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KAREN:

My Mom has always been the rock and foundation in my life. When I was about fourteen and my sister Heather was eleven, Heather's friend was spending the night with us. We were in my room, when we suddenly decided to light up some cigarettes. We were very casually puffing away, all three of us. Our friend was amazed that we were allowed to smoke in my room. I was very reassuring.

"No problem, my Mom doesn't mind at all," that sort of thing.

I was suddenly very aware of Mom standing in my doorway, looking like thunder. She left no doubt we were to put out those cigarettes, and go to bed and to sleep. Now!

The next morning, Mom bounced in to wake us with, "Come on, ladies, let's get up. Let's go have some coffee and cigarettes."

I never again smoked in my Mom's house.

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LINDA:

I have the world's best Mom. She's the Mom everybody wants. All my friends wanted my Mom, though I didn't really want theirs. My niece's boyfriend met my Mom, and decided to adopt her.

Mom was always there for us. When we went to school in the morning, she was there, when we came home in the afternoon, she was there. When we needed a ride, she was Doris's Taxi Service. As I became less able to do things for myself, she was there. She's still always there. I depend on her, and am grateful that she's still always there.

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DORIS:

There was a time when my daughters thought I was awfully square. Linda used to walk behind me, and she thought I didn't know she used her two index fingers to outline a square when she disagreed with me.

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KAREN:

When my body started behaving very strangely, and before I was diagnosed with M.S., I lived in San Jose. Several different doctors suggested various diseases so, of course, they also suggested various remedies. During a time when one doctor thought I had lupus, the remedy de jour was a monthly treatment with CYTOXIN, which is a low-grade chemotherapy. This entailed going several miles to the doctor's office, an injection of cytoxin, then rushing home before I started throwing up.

With California highways, there was never a guarantee of quick passage. But one time was particularly bad. It seemed Murphy's Law was being strictly enforced – whatever could go wrong was very actively going wrong. Mom was driving, and was very frustrated. I think if there had been a shoulder wide enough for our car, she'd have been on that. But there wasn't, and nobody was cutting her any slack at all.

Mom decided that, even with barf bag in hand, I was NOT going to throw up until we got home. She drove and talked and drove and scolded and drove and told me to hang on and drove some more. She had simply made up her mind, and that was that.

Know what? It worked. Because of all the traffic mess, it took extra time to get home. Ordinarily, in that period of time, my misery would have been well under way. But because of my Mom's firm determination, I managed to not throw up until after we got home. Such is the power of my Mom's mind.

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JILL:

My second daughter, Amy, is also an adult now, with her own views of life. From the time she was about three, she was very compassionate. For instance, she would always seek out the new child in class and try to make that child more comfortable. She almost never got into trouble, but she had her own little way of making amends when she had messed up.

Amy had a whole series of small toiletries items which were popular when she was a child. When she had made a small mistake, she would wrap one of her toiletries items up in whatever she could find to disguise it, and present it to me as a peace offering. For several years, I carried a tiny compact and comb she had given me.

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ANITA:

One time Mom put a dozen or so eggs on to boil, and then forgot about them. It took quite a while, but the water all boiled away, and the very hard eggs were just resting on the bottom of a still heating pot. They couldn't take the pressure, and exploded - all over the kitchen. It was funny for a while, but there's something about the odor of a boiled-too-long egg as it begins to spoil that doesn't go away very fast. Mom never made that mistake again!

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KAREN:

When I was finally diagnosed with M.S., I went through a lot of anger, and "why-me" stuff. I wanted to take a get-better pill, and then have it be all gone. My Mom put up with that for a little while, then jerked me up short.

She said, "Why you? Because you can handle it." I realized, of course, that though I didn't want to have to handle it, Mom was right.

After I met Linda, I was blown away by her story that when her mother was saying "Why you", Linda had said the same about herself - because she could handle it. Right now Linda's recently been through a rough patch, and she's saying she's not so sure she's handling it very well, but the rest of us here know she has and she is.

It was always comforting to know that, no matter how badly I'd messed up, my Mom was always there, and always loved me. She has five daughters, and whatever any of us undertook, she supported us.

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JILL:

Both of my daughters have been good at remembering the special events in our lives. They are always there for holidays. Sometimes Amy is far away, but she phones with great regularity, comes to visit even more often than I expect, and brings small gifts because she can't afford large ones and I don't need large ones. I'm more touched by the thoughtful small ones, like the extremely good chocolate bars that she knows I love.

Kristin has never been one to put up and decorate a Christmas tree in her own home. That may change as her daughter grows older - Moms tend to do things to please their children. But a couple of years ago, Kristin had invited me for Christmas, and quietly bought, erected and decorated a tree, simply because she knew it would please me enormously.

The fact is, I don't always understand them, but I rather like my daughters.

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ANITA:

We were at our mountain cabin, and there was a whole crowd around - a couple of mothers, Linda, me, a cousin, three kids in another family - and we were playing cards. The two mothers got into a hot game of double solitaire, and didn't want to stop to fix supper. They decided to give us some money - maybe $5, maybe $10 - and send us out to bring home something from the fast food place not far away.

So off we went, with no further instructions, and we spent the entire amount on french fries. Now, this was in the 60's, and the money we had been given bought a lot of potatoes. The Moms were a bit surprised, but since they hadn't specified what we should bring, they apparently didn't feel they could complain.

We had french fries for supper - the kids were happy, and the mothers didn't fuss. Nobody said anything about a balanced diet - we just tucked into those french fries and had a ball!

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.Editor's Note: These special ladies, Jill, Karen, Linda, are residents in a care facility in Seattle. Carol does the job of taking down their stories, and Bill Brayer, their support group leader, is the one who gets the finished products to me for the magazine. I so appreciate the effort of all involved. I hope the ladies understand how very welcome they are as part of the magazine!

If you'd like to comment, Bill will take them to the home and share them with the ladies.

Reach Bill by email with your comments: wbrayer@cmc.net

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