I introduced my mother to many of you in the story Lilacs.
She is from Munich, Germany...hence the "Mutti"
This year I am grateful that we are going to Bar Harbor to have a big brunch. Blue skies will follow us, fluffy clouds and sunshine.
Each of us gets more insight into the trek of our parents as we get older. Each year, I see more that was the challenge of my mother's life and the strength she has needed.
She was born in Munich in 1935, beginning of World War 2. Her mother was a strong and loving presence in her childhood. Her father fixed bicycles...and was less of an inspiration in her life.
I visited the home she grew up in several times. It was a 3rd floor apartment, very cramped by American standards. I remember her mother (my Omi) feeding me until I was ready to burst. I had no idea the pleasure it must have given her to be feeding her grandchild in times of comparative plenty
My mother's stories of childhood told of danger that I had no experience with.
She lost a childhood friend to an unexploded bomb.
Her father was taken away by the SS for listening to BBC radio. In each apartment complex there were citizens who listened to the goings on in homes and reported to the Nazi's. He was later returned because he had a relative who was an official in the Nazi Party.
Air Raid Sirens left them all scrambling to dark and cold concrete cellars.
My Omi would ride into the country on her bicycle to bring back food for the family.
My Mutti was 9 when the war ended. Following silence of uncertainty, the Allied troops came through the neighborhood with tanks. They threw chocolate to the children.
As a child I had no interest in maintaining bragging rights to her stories. I knew there was another side to the story. I knew that because as a 12 year old, my mother brought me back to Germany and we toured Dachau, a very nearby Concentration camp. The feel of that place still gives me shivers as an adult. Then it was too much to process.
Now I just see my 9 year old mother in the middle of it. There is a picture of her from that time, skinny as a rail, but skipping.
I think that picture says alot. My mother has met more challenges, but still seems to keep an adventuresome spirit.
When she was pregnant with my brother (5 1/2 years younger) she found a lump in her neck. They did a biopsy after my brother was born. It was cancerous. In fact, it was a lymph node and the primary spot was in the back of her throat. She had a radical neck procedure done, removing many of the muscles from her neck. She went through chemo and radiation (both crude by today's standards). She went down to 90 lbs.
I vaguely remember her at the hospital. What I remember is that I hated it and to get me to go, my father would buy me a matchbox car each time from the gift shop. I remember my mother offering me a bite of a banana that she was eating and my refusing it. She asked me why.
I didn't want to catch the cancer.
I remember her tears after that.
In the family story, I cancer specialist at Greater Baltimore Medical Center told her that she would live to raise her kids. His name was Dr. Nataile.
It would be years before I would appreciate the power of that moment. She was 31 at that time.
She lived to raise me and my brother.
She lived through my childhood dramas. She lived to see me married, then divorced than married again. She lived to see me father three children and raise 2. She saw me graduate vet school and start my dream career. She watched as Kindred Spirits became a reality.
To her credit, she never said "You've got it pretty easy kid"
Whenever bad things happened though, she did say "Adversity Builds Character."
She was right.
So today I'm bringing my Mutti Character to brunch in Bar Harbor.
...and this year the unlikliness of this outcome, being in Maine in 2011 under sunny skies with my mom and my wife and her mother....with my own kids grown...
Not lost on me.
Happy Mother's Day to all of you who gave your energy, made deals with God, and understood that your kids might not get it all for a very long time....
