'Mother and Me'

‘MOTHER AND ME’

My Mother is a true ‘Labrador Rose, the Sweetest of Flowers’. The line comes from a song my father has been singing for 58 years now. His love for my mother is as perennial as the grass. Even though they both suffer ill health, it is Father who pushes himself to get the best, cook the best, and love her the best. It has been that way since he was posted to the coast of Labrador in 1947, while serving with the Newfoundland Ranger Force.

Like most young men, he found two special friends, who happened to have a younger sister home on vacation from Ontario. He describes the scene when he first met her. She was sitting by the fire, her long dark hair reflecting the flames, her eyes sparkling, and her smile dazzling. He was, he says, absolutely positive that she would not be returning to Ontario, because he was going to marry her. And he did!

Mother speaks of waiting to see the lantern coming toward her home, swinging to and fro, a walk and a motion of my Father’s that she had come to recognize. His blue eyes and kind regard for those less fortunate, his police work done with a human touch, and his love of her so strong, won her heart. In a short time they married and life as a policeman’s wife began for Mother.

It was a role she did well. She had always wanted to be a nurse. However Father tells me that the money for education was saved for the boys. Girls were expected to marry and have families, and education was not thought to be important for them. That was the prevailing thought of the day. Mother was angry about that. I assure Father that Mother, in her own right, was and is a nurse. She cared for his mother for ten years, gave birth to five children, cared for prisoners, and nothing was too much for Mother to give to any community to which they would be posted.

But there were difficulties! Major difficulties for me as the first born, mainly because Mother knew nothing about ‘mothering’. She had been orphaned at the age of seven years, was raised, as she says, ‘like Topsy’, a little girl in a book she had read, who had no home. Whoever in the six of her older siblings that had a new baby, or was ill, took Mother until somebody else wanted her. Father refers to it as ‘white slavery’! She did the chores, she cooked and cleaned, she read and did her embroidery, but she did not learn how to nurture, because she had never been nurtured herself. Understandable to me now that I am a fifty-seven year old grandmother, but not the least bit comprehensible to me as a child, a teen or a young mother.

Mother did her best to make herself into a ‘mother’, but she knew did not know how. Her punishment of the smallest of my mischievous behaviors was exaggerated. She never held me, she never comforted me, but she professed to love me and I was, in turn, her slave. Father did his best to help, and a bond between him and I developed, the bond that I should have had with a ‘mother’. Father was both to me. He knew the problem and for years he would diffuse the situation to the best of his ability.

Gradually as the siblings arrived, Mother got better at nurturing babies. Still I was never nurtured as the new babies were and remained hurt and unloved. My siblings and I often talk about how we all had a different ‘mother’. As time went on, Mom learned mothering skills, how to nurture, and to love outwardly. She learned it from her children and husband.

Mother resented me even into my teen years. She made every joyful occasion be filled with heartache and tears. Never, ever, even as a young Mother myself, could I understand it! I was resentful and angry toward my mother, and I could not stop it. I would watch her with the youngest, and marvel at her amazing transformation into a loving, caring mother.

On one of my summer vacations I asked the question that needed to be asked.

"Mom, why did you never love me?" I asked with hesitancy.

With fire in her eyes she glared at me and answered, "Because you are strong and independent. You did not need it like the others!"

I packed up my family and left. My husband was totally disgusted, my children upset, and my heart so fractured I could barely function. My siblings understood, and so did my father, who suggested, with great pain, that it might be better if I forgot about Mother, that her bizarre attitude toward me would never change. I was a Registered Nurse by then and Father suggested that Mother harbored a resentment towards me, although she was proud of my accomplishments.

It was all too much. The pain of my broken heart was almost too extreme to deal with. At the same time, being a nurse, I had studied much, and knew there was something not right with this. Mother’s behavior was not all-right, was antisocial, and there had to be something amiss. How could a mother not love her firstborn child that she dressed so lovingly and never allowed a bit of dirt to touch, or a scratch go unattended.

The years went by. Mother had bouts of illness and surgeries. She was never well. She gradually warmed toward me, and at one point told me she expected our problem was that she treated me as a sister, not as a daughter. It told me she was trying to find the answer to her own troubling behavior.

The year Mother turned seventy, six years ago, was an eventful one for our family. There were weddings, confirmations, graduations, and a great grandchild was born to my daughter, making my parents great-grandparents By then I was the one Mother leaned on for support, the one she called in the middle of the night, and the one she wanted when she was ill. In 2000 I moved back to Newfoundland, and now I live only an hour and a half drive away from my parents.

The bubble finally burst! Mother became very, very sick. Finally somebody paid attention, possibly because the doctors and the system were confronted daily by her four daughters, all nurses, and a son who fought for answers and would not quit!

The doctors admitted her to hospital where she was treated well, showing strength and dignity in spite of the invasive procedures she had to endure. Then the diagnosis was given to us, as a group, in a clinic room at the hospital. Two doctors informed us our Mother suffered from Bipolar Depression. They went on to say that for years the condition was misunderstood, but now new treatments were available and they would see that she got the best and would go on to lead a reasonably active lifestyle.

She is working hard on this now, sticking to her regimen regardless of who happens to be visiting. She wants to be well, and two days a week, regardless of weather, she goes to a Day Hospital, where the nurses say she is like one of them. She even plays the piano there. She surprised us all, because she has always been non-compliant and resistant to such intrusions into her life. Her determination remains strong, and she is 76 years old now.

Now we talk about all the years of mistreatment, the physical beatings, the verbal abuse, and the emotional upsets I had suffered because of her strange behavior, all things that were to leave a lasting scar on my heart and soul. But now I am mature enough to know that what I had guessed years ago is true-my mother is very sick. All through the years she suffered, painfully, hurtfully, and did what was required of her, even taking battered women into our own home in the middle of the night.

How ever did she do it? She says now that some bad times were worse than others. According to her doctors she had a post-partum depression after my birth which caused her bitterness, and disturbing treatment of the baby who had made her feel so sick. However, at that time no treatment or even care was available for this type of depression.

A few weeks ago, at my parents home, my mother discussed many things with me, a discussion triggered by a question I had asked. She was sad about the past and her wretched behavior. I hugged her and felt the frail thin body that was once robust and strong like me and could run circles around other mothers, and I cried tears like rain. Tears for all she had suffered emotionally, and for all she had to do although she was ill during our growing up.

Yet, in spite of it all, I remember the little ritual we each had to participate in before we left for school. She tried, she tried so hard, to fight the ‘Depression’ that robbed her of joy. The Bible was her guide she says.

The ritual was to ‘PICK A PROMISE’. She had a small porcelain ‘Bread of Life’ about six inches long. In the center of the bread were small cards in varying colors. On each of these slips was a Bible verse, and on the back was an explanation of the verse. To this day, when visiting my parents, we still go to the ‘Bread of Life’ and ‘Pick a Promise’! Mother has them all memorized of course. I pick my promise, and we sit and talk. I tell her I forgive her, that she was very sick and worked very hard, so she should forgive herself as well.

She rubs my arms and says "I was strong like you once wasn’t I?"

With a lump in my throat I tell her yes, she was, but now is the time she needs strong people to care for her. She goes on to say that if she ever lost one of her children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren, she would die. I truly believe she would. Her love is endless, her love is forgiving, and in turn so is mine.

I recall clearly a young mother chasing me because she thought I took something from a store without asking. I remember her hair flying in the wind, so beautiful, so free, so strong and happy at the time.

I love my mother.My mother has endured more than anyone will ever know or understand.There are times when her behavior is as hostile toward me as it always was. But she is frail now, and I tease her because I wonder when she got shorter than I! She was always taller. She starts to explain the degeneration of the disks, and then realizes I am teasing. I tell her it feels good to ‘look down’ on her! Then she really knows I am kidding!

My mother and I gave each other the gift of forgiveness. I am so grateful for that. We are at peace with each other now, and consequently the family feels better for both of us. They follow their oldest sister’s direction as they always have.

Mom is a phenomenal woman, a loving, giving mother, a loyal trusting wife, with a deep faith in God. It is little wonder my father’s favorite song is Labrador Rose.

My mother is indeed that-a true Labrador Rose, the sweetest of flowers!

I am proud of you Mom, and I love you dearly, more than you will ever know.

Bonnie Jarvis-Lowe

Words to Dads’ Favorite verse in the song Labrador Rose:

'Oh Labrador Rose, you’re the sweetest of flowers,
As you blossom and grow by the cold northern
stream.
For the rest of my life I want you beside me.
Oh, Labrador Rose, you are my living dream.'

And she has been beside him, for almost sixty years now. That is called ‘LOVE’.

Story ID:	1632
Written by:	Bonnie Jarvis-Lowe (bio, link, contact, other stories)
Organization:	Retired RN/Freelance Writer and Photographer
Story type:	Family History
Writers Conference:	$500 2007 Family Memories Writing Project
Location:	Clarenville Newfoundland and Labrador Canada
Year:	1948
Person:	My Mother