My mom has taught me, or simply genetically passed on, some rules I live by, love by and find good and true.

She taught me these things by living them–not preaching, nagging, prodding or demanding.  Not that she wasn’t a master at getting her point across on many things with any or all of the latter approaches, but these things are her basics to living with and for other people that work for her and live in me.

1. Don’t think about it, do it.  If you are thinking about someone, don’t just buy the card, send it.  And go to the post office at midnight to get it to them while your thoughts about the other person are timely and meaningful. Even if that means dropping it in the post box at midnight, wearing a rain coat over your nightgown and driving in your slippers. She did this often and slept soundly knowing tomorrow wouldn’t start with an “if only I had told/him her I was thinking of them.”  In today’s world this would also translate to an email, text or IM chat;  raincoat and nightgown are not as essential unless you have video chat.

2.  When in doubt, just go. Doing anything in a difficult situation is better than nothing. Mom is the best at this with death or illness.  If someone gets bad news, just go and “be.”  You don’t have to have the right words, a bouquet of perfect roses or arrive with clean hair and mascara. Sometimes the loneliness and isolation of life altering news just needs a hug, a shared tear or the knowledge that someone else is willing to go through the crisis with you, as far as they can go for as long as you allow them. In these moments, mom often baked and took her famous apple pie. (See post 10/26/11 for recipe.)

3.  Coming from a long line of pale-lashed women, mom is the queen of a hat and sunglasses and out the door. For those of us who are not blessed with thick black lashes and a long mane that can be tied back  in seconds to a ponytail, this idea is a lifesaver. Many days, if I waited until I felt put together enough to face the world, it would be dark before I exited the house. Like mom, my sunglasses are my best friend.  Especially if I go to the grocery store at 4:00 PM and it is dark when I lug the bags to the car, I can pretend I am a movie star rather than a lazy suburban house frau and envision paparazzi crouched behind the bushes, snapping wildly.

4.  Don’t take no for an answer until you are tied to the rail road tracks and can hear the whistle.  Mom is the master of unfettered, unabashed tenacity on any subject and in any situation.  She has physically stood in front of bulldozers to stop a high school from being built in her sleepy, private neighborhood. She has written and met congressmen, mayors, church leaders and civic do-gooders to get her point, the only point, heard and often abided.  It doesn’t hurt that for most of her life, and still at 88, she is beautiful (with or without the sunglasses), irresistibly charming and persuasive. But with whatever tactics, she gets it done– and often her way.

5.  Which brings me to the only time she lost a battle (but won the war) with her children which was her recent move to an “adult living situation” near my sister and brother.  After my father’s death eight years ago, the house she and dad had built and lived in for sixty some years was too much for her to keep up; what with all the talking on the phone, letter writing and pie baking, even she was a little overwhelmed. Since we all lived out of state, the logical move was to have her live near us.  Logical to us, but not mom. She had enjoyed the good fortune of living within a two mile radius of her birthplace and most of her six siblings for over 85 years.  Mom met my dad in the church choir of a building her father had built and attended Sunday services there for more years than I have lived.  She had watched the same maple tree in her front yard grow from a sappling to a 25 foot fortress; saw countless snowfalls, dogwood’s early blossoms, sunrises, sunsets–year after year–all from the same front porch for over six decades.

No this move, this battle, I believe was her worst. She cried, she pleaded, she denied, she ignored, she “took to her bed,” even tried falling onto the fainting couch.  She pulled out all the stops but we would not budge.  And finally, on the day she was to move in to her new “home,” she had no choice and seemed to be losing her signature strength.

It was my job to drive her there.  My sister had gone ahead to arrange her room to make it as welcoming and as much like her real home as possible.  Mom got into the car silently, teary behind her sunglasses and sat stoically staring out the passenger window as we drove. I understood her pain as I saw new hills rising beside us, a new river winding beside the road, a new bridge spanning the distance ahead.

When we turned into the parking lot and the car rolled to a stop, mom pulled down the visor on her side of the car. She took off her sunglasses, dabbed her eyes with a monogrammed linen hanky, applied some lipstick, replaced her glasses and flipped up the mirror. She reached in her purse and pulled out her white cotton gloves, slowly pulled them on and sat quietly as I rounded the car to open her door and help her up the ramp to the entrance.

As we stepped into the foyer where the director, social worker and a nurse stood waiting to greet her and bring her into the fold of her fellow housemates, my mother, now my hero, extended her gloved handed and in her best Elizabeth Taylor voice said, “Hello, I am Sarah Noble.  So pleased to know you. May I see my room now?”

I don’t think I have ever admired or loved my mother more than in that moment. As the gliding doors slid shut behind us, she had, in her usual style, risen to an occasion that even I would have thought unbearable. She accepted her fate with grace.  And, as always, on her terms.