example and counter

My mother's funeral was at the beginning of this year.

Every speaker and contributor to it spoke of how she'd given her entire life over to helping others. She worked tirelessly to improve things for other people. She was beloved for her laughter, her caring, the joy she took in others. She was dyslexic, wheelchair-bound, and in the last five years of her life also entirely blind--none of which stopped her from charity work, from volunteer work, or from her political work. She marched for gay rights, for black lives, for disability rights, for peace. She refused to go quietly into that good night; she was campaigning and fighting for what she believed in right up until she died.

She was a force of nature. Her laugh could be heard from streets away. She sang like nobody was listening, would flirt with anyone. She was teetotal all her life, which was probably just as well--the concept of what she'd have been like drunk is terrifying! When I was in my teens, my friends adored her. And why wouldn't they? She was unshockable, empathetic, outspoken, outrageous. She paid attention to everyone, and made everyone feel special and interesting.

As her child I was often the one who saw the other side, the darker side; despair at her chronic pain, misery at the confines of a body that hurt and failed her. She'd grown up in conditions of extreme poverty and with family that had abandoned or mistreated her. She had lifelong issues with trust, with food and with money. She would become suddenly paranoid about people she'd regarded as friends, or about her competency to perform tasks she'd performed for years. She hoarded food and possessions; it was a standing joke that at any point she was ready to feed a battalion, including owning enough crockery and cutlery to go around.

(Had that battalion turned up hungry, she would have fed them without a second thought. She would feed and shelter anyone who she thought needed it. For years in my teens I had some penpals who wrote to me because of their gratitude to my parents and my tangential involvement; a man who'd needed a place to stay and so had slept in my bed once while I was away, a man who'd been given my old sleeping bag on a trip through the area, a woman who'd been given my old clothes for her children. I received postcards for years from these strangers--my mother's dyslexia always made her ask them to write to me instead of her.)

I suspect, had my mother not had a particular block in her mind about mental health--she regarded herself as never having had a mental health problem, and claimed she didn't understand having them, though she was understanding and supportive about it in everyone who wasn't me--she might have received some therapy for things she went through. It might have been very good for her.

She was a good example in many ways. I try to emulate the better parts: inclusiveness, fortitude, eloquence, friendliness. She taught me that advocacy for one's self and for those less able to speak was not only important, but critical. She taught me to ignore convention when it pleased me, and to use my privilege to help those without.

I try to emulate the best of her. I campaign. I donate. I make space and time for those who need it. It's what she'd have done.

But I've yet to drive through a town centre with the windows wound down, singing Wild Thing at top volume. Some things, well, I'll let stay entirely hers.