MOTHER COURAGE: a micro memoir with footnotes
November 4 is my mother's birthday.
2024 is the first year she is not alive on earth to celebrate it.
But I celebrate her every day and, today on my blog,
I celebrate her with a special tribute.
Anne Le Rougetel was a splendid woman and an exceptional mother.
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MOTHER COURAGE
a micro memoir with footnotes
My mother helped me live, I helped her die. She taught me courage: “I’ve only regretted the things I didn’t do,” she told me (1). So at 17, I wandered the streets of Paris on my own (2); at 33, I survived a disastrous business venture (3); at 53, I married my girlfriend (4). So when Mum asked me to set in motion her medically assisted death, I did — writing emails and making appointments all new to me (5). I have no regrets: Holding her hand as she died on her own terms was a brave ending to our 64-year relationship of deep love and understanding (6).
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footnotes below
(1) August 1977: I was packed and ready to leave for my stint in France as an au pair. Graduated from high school, I was taking a year “off” before attending my hometown university the following year. I was 17-and-a-half years old. Mum uttered these fateful wonderful words of advice during a pep talk before my departure. All these decades later, I continue to reference them when faced with a decision about doing something that jangles my nerves or expands my comfort zone to bursting. I don’t always say YES, but I always have them as my touchpoint in the face of an apparently wild and wacky choice. Thanks, Mum. xoxox
(2) I had room and board with a family, in exchange for giving their daughter English conversation lessons. I spent the rest of my time literally walking the streets, popping into museums, galleries and cafes as the mood moved me before returning to my lodgings for dinner. I remember feeling enormously sophisticated; now, almost 50 years later, I think how immensely privileged and life-shaping those months of young freedom and discovery were for me. Thanks, Mum. Courage is seeded by confidence, which you gave me in spades.
(3) Flattery got me in; the back of an envelope got me out. I had left full-time work for a part-time job as a way to explore how to earn my living differently. When a business associate asked me to join her fledgling company (“We really need your communication skills, Amanda.”), I was flattered and excited, using a personal line of credit to make my financial contribution. But nothing worked out as planned and, one day, I found myself at the dining room table, a ratty envelope and pencil in hand and, before I knew it, had written on it “I want out”. Seeing those words in black and white made them incontrovertible and I did, indeed, get out, losing money in the process. It was Mum who gave me the silver lining. “Amanda,” she said. “You’ve lost some money but not as much as you would have paid for an MBA and I bet you’ve learned at least as much through this experience as you would have as a student.” Thanks, Mum. You were absolutely right.
(4) In our twentieth year together, I asked Val to marry me. With cancer rearing its ugly head for a second time in her body, it seemed only sensible to make our long-standing union legal. Despite the urgent reason for it, our wedding day was pure happiness. Eleven years on, the happiness remains and the cancer is absent.
(5) Surreal to write to strangers asking for their assistance in helping my mother die, but I think much of what is most precious in life can be a bit surreal. No? What is good pure love if not an intangible feeling of awesome amazing connection that starts in the heart and travels through the body, touching and tingling every atom in our being along the way. Is that not surreal? So why should a good life well lived not end in a way both surreal and loving.
(6) Surreal, yes, but also deeply loving and also, truly, very real. Birth and death. Nothing more real than either of those human passages — for everyone involved.
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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.
Thank you, Amanda, for sharing much of your mother’s life and death with me over the past year. You did everything just right.
ReplyDeleteSuch wonderful memories of your magnificent mother. I hope the important piece you've written about assisting with death finds a wonderful publisher.
ReplyDeletelove the format of this blog! And the content - well - I'm sorry you've mother died but I'm pleased you've added your voice to the MAiDvocates. We need to normalize talking about medically assisted death. You're doing just that.
ReplyDeleteAnne was a special woman, who helped guide my life as well, although I was 35 years old when we met. I think of her and miss her daily. Sometimes it’s as if she’s still here.
ReplyDeleteTo be to have your loved ones with you when you die must be so comforting, Anne not only had a life well lived but also a graceful death. She was a great friend and support for me, I still miss her daily.
ReplyDeleteBeautifully written reflection, Amanda. A testament to pure love.
ReplyDeleteAs always,, beautiful and moving
DeleteDanielle