One of My Inspirations

This past weekend was Mother's Day.  I was blessed with time to spend with each of my kids individually.  I was allowed to soak in how they are each so different and amazing in their own special ways.

First thing Sunday morning, I received a text from my mom wishing me a Happy Mother's Day telling me that I was a great mom.  I reminded her that I had learned from the best.  Her response was that she had had a great teacher. 

The past little while, my mom journey has been full of many bumps, lumps and bruises - raising a teen and a tween is no joke.  Even in our hard moments, I could not love my kids more.  I learned to love well from the women who paved the path before me.

My sweet grandmother was a force to be reckoned with.  This tiny but mighty soul experienced more pain and challenge than I can wrap my brain around and came through it with a beauty and strength that can only come from the struggle.  She grew up with a fairly privileged life in Ontario - by that I mean she was blessed to receive an education, she had electricity and running water...  She finished school and went on to get her first year of university which allowed her to become a teacher.  This in itself was significant because this was around 1940.  During a summer break, while on vacation with her sister, she was having some troubles with her bicycle as a cute, young man happened upon them.  This young man was a soldier waiting to be shipped off to Europe.  Over the next few years, many letter were exchanged.  He sent home money so his mom could buy a ring and mail it to her.  Once he was done fighting for his country, the plan was for my grandma to take the train to Alberta, get married and start a new life.

Sounds like a movie right...  This is where the fairy tale starts to get real really fast.  One of the last things her mother said to her before she boarded that train was - you'll be back.  With a strong stubborn streak as motivation she set off across the country into the wild west.  Almost immediately after getting off that train, she was whisked off to get married - after all, they did not have enough beds to have a guest so they needed to do the proper thing.  With that life on the prairies began.

This life looked very different from the one she was used to.  No electricity, no running water...  They moved into a converted grainery with a dirt floor that would serve as a one bedroom home.  (Yes this was in Alberta and winters were not any warmer back then).  She soon became pregnant but that sweet baby passed away during childbirth.  She ended up losing two babies during childbirth and many of her other births were breach and very difficult.  Eventually they did fill up that one room grainery with one daughter and three sons.

With time they did move out into a home that they built - that had electricity and water!  But the hard times continued.  My grandfather suffered a massive heart attack very young.  He did survive but it meant that he was no longer able to farm in the same capacity so my grandma went back to teaching.  Not your conventional family in the late 50's, early 60's but they did what needed to be done.  Over the years, she would spend time away over the summers and did finish up her degree.  She taught generations of families in the same school and even after she was forced to retire could be found reading with the kids or tutoring them.

She was not without her own health struggles over the years.  In her 60's she beat lung cancer even though she had never smoked a cigarette in her life.  Then again in her 80's she beat colon cancer.    Shortly after the colon cancer, she suffered a life changing brain injury that took her independence along with most of her memories. 

She fought hard her entire life.  She loved on everyone she met well.  She was one of the most inspiring people I have ever had the opportunity to know.

This is a picture taken in 2003 the week that Waylon was born.  She had already suffered her brain injury at this time but she loved babies.  I was lucky that my mom was able to get her a day pass to bring her to my home to meet her new great grandson.  My children never had the opportunity to hear her stories told from her perspective.  She passed away just shortly after I became pregnant with Georgia.  She was one of the first people to know about our coming blessing and she was so excited that there would be another little person for her to love.

So what does this have to do with my journey towards mastery?  I look at how she touched and inspired so many people.  She had pluck and grit and a never give up attitude that allowed her to have an impact that will ripple down for generations, not just in my family but in the community she lived in.  To me, mastery is without a true purpose if it is only for yourself.  I want to push my limits to show my kids and their kids that they can be so much more than they can imagine.  I want to be the example of how I dream my kids will live.  In a world filled with mediocrity our kids need an example.  I could easily sit back and wait for someone to be the example or I can get up and try to be that example.  Many days I am not proud or happy with the example that I am setting but each day my plan and goal is step closer to being that inspiration, to loving well and to having a life well lived.