Mothers: The Gift of Endurance

With Mom in Calgary (1960)

MY MOTHER WOULD HAVE BEEN 98 THIS YEAR.  Losing her some 35 years ago was difficult; today she is my constant companion.Meeting my father when he was on leave in Edinburgh, Scotland, during World War Two introduced her to a future she could never have predicted. She became a Scottish war bride in 1944 by marrying her Canadian soldier. There was lots of that in those days, and the hotels were so full that they had to spend their summer wedding night in a cow pasture. It was likely to be her last moment of real peace before the madness of war and personal tumult invaded her world.Six months later she received a telegram from the War Department, saying that Dad had been missing and presumed killed in the Italian campaign. I kept that telegram for years. Devastated, like so many other remarkable young women of that time, she maintained her work schedule at the local munitions factory and attempted to bury the pain.D-Day was occupying everyone’s mind and correspondence was heavily censored so that no secrets would be revealed. Only when the invasion was accomplished did she receive a telegram from Canada. It was from my father in Calgary, in convalescence from being shot twice - he had, in fact, survived. He wondered why she hadn’t contacted him after he sent all those letters saying he was struggling after being sent back to Canada from hospital in North Africa. Letters had been held up because of the military campaign and he had never known she had received the telegram saying he had perished.Proceeding by ship to Canada, she met my Dad in Calgary as they tried to build a life together. My brother and I were born during that time (1945 and 1950 respectively), but my father’s wounds meant he was incapable of solid work. It was then determined that she should take the kids back to Scotland while he attempted to find employment. So here was this struggling woman, with a five-year old and a nine-month old, taking the train back to Montreal for the return journey to her homeland. Five years later Dad found a job with Imperial Oil and asked her to return, which she did within the year.The following years were anything but easy for Mom, including bouts of alcoholism and depression – the reason I haven’t written of this until now. It was never easy, but through it all she walked me to school, taught me to put others first, to never forget Scotland, to throw myself into life rather than backing into it, and in the process I loved her with a full heart.How did she do it? How did she manage to keep it all together when the entire world, including her own, was literally falling apart? In my mind, it was a miracle of tenacity in a world of unsurely - one of the legacies mothers leave to the human race. Some moms believe they have to train their kids to carry themselves in a cruel world. Fair enough, but Mom continued to remind me to play a role in actually making the world a bit more kind and just – remarkable. The training of her children was her direct answer to a supposedly hopeless world. I was her downpayment to a better future – God, what a thought. And what a responsibility!Dorothy Fisher once wrote: “A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary.” But if that is so, why do I tilt so much towards her now? Because I need her? No, because I love her, just as I did following my first breath and her last. Catherine Wiseman Pearson – a woman of her time who transcends all time, of her generation and every generation. I am her son. I love you, Mom.