My Hero

Thinking about this a lot lately as my mom's dementia progresses.  We have lost a lot of who she is over the years.  But she is and always has been my hero.
She is the most incredibly brave woman.  My dad left when I was like six.  Mom had to go back and get some schooling to get a job.  I remember her jumping through hoops to get state assistance so she could do that.  Then she went to work for our town paper doing typesetting.
Then when I was ten she decided to uproot us and move us across the country.  She had planned on living in Seattle when she was young, but she got married instead.  Well we didn't end up in Seattle, but Portland.  Single Mom raising kids in a town with very little family support.  How brave is that?
I watched her work on her relationship with my dad and take him back.  And that couldn't have been easy ever.  He was an alcoholic and that brings a whole slew of dynamics to a family.  She weathered it with grace.  She turned to Al-anon when she needed that.
She took care of my dad in his final illness of the brain cancer.  And was left with just enough money to put herself through nursing school.  Yes, she became a nurse in her late forties and then a hospice nurse until she retired.  It takes special people to be able to do that job.
Before that she had held a myriad of low paying jobs.  She worked at the cannery one year, she sold Avon and Tupperware.  She worked for a local typesetter.  Always doing what she had to do to move forward in life.
My mom has weathered more than her share of health problems.  Multiple surgeries over the years.  Cancer.  Precancer.  Asthma, COPD, dementia.  Dementia is the one that scared her the most.  And yet she is going through it with mostly grace.  This one she is not going to win or turn around.  And that makes us all sad.
But she has had a pretty good life.  Lots of love and laughter.  She has always been available to us for any kind of help she could offer us if needed.  She has given us a great foundation and shown us how to live through life's curve balls.
She is my hero.