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"I Love You, Mom" ~ In Prose Form

A short but rhythmic tribute to my Mama Bear

By Lena FolkertPublished 3 years ago Updated 2 years ago 3 min read
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Some would say she is crazy, insane, bonkers, plum off her rocker. She would say that she lists a little to starboard. But if you ask those who know and love her best, than you would be well-informed that she’s brilliant, amazing, courageous, and so completely nuts that she will drive you to a madness much like her own. She is my strength, my past, my future, and my truest friend and confidante.

I have spent my life trying to figure her out, to get inside her mind and put things in their proper place. But then I have moments where I realize that everything is just where it should be inside her mind. She’s a brilliant mix of Peter Pan and Captain Hook qualities. A person could waste their life trying to fix her, and they would feel nothing short of maddening fury at her stubbornness and unwillingness to conform.

She has her own way of doing everything. The little girl who screamed “no, Papa” to her grandfather for slurping his soup, has grown into the woman who licks her plate clean and dribbles coffee down her shirt, claiming “hole in the lip.” Sometimes I want to scream at her that she’s wrong, bullheaded, and impossible. But then those qualities that frustrate and infuriate me are the same qualities that have given her the strength and truth of character to raise two daughters under incredible and opposing forces.

She passed on a cocktail of psychological disorders that we all share prescriptions to cope with, but along with those deficiencies of genetics, she passed on a trueness of character, and strength of spirit which cannot be denied. Forced out on her own in the cruelty of an Alaskan wilderness as a teenager, she made herself a home on the Homer Spit—a stretch of beach along the Alaskan coastline.

It was there that she met my father. Slightly older, much less wise, and fresh from the Army, he found her on that beach. Soon, they were married. My sister followed within a year, and I came only three years later. We all moved to Seward, AK, where poverty continued to follow us -- No electricity, no running water, no heat for the cold winters, no food worth mentioning, and no real hope of change. There are very few fond memories any of us have of those early years.

There was the horse we somehow managed to feed but still seemed to hate us all. Though, she provided entertainment and a fond story years later, as we would relate the tale of buying the horse from the Kilcher family, and the young girl who walked her out to meet us and grew into the singer known only by Jewel. Of course, we will continue to remember the yodeling family from Alaska, and the mother and daughter who sought refuge in Seward for a time.

We also think fondly of the tire swing that hung out over a small type of valley in our rather large, undeveloped backyard. Picking wild strawberries and blueberries, rarely making it home with more than a handful of uneaten berries. Weekends spent with our loving, seemingly carefree grandmother brought food to our empty bellies, and laughter that was so rare in those first few years we shared.

But amidst all of these tragedies and trials, deficiencies and abuses, our mother reigned supreme as the master worker, teacher and friend, lover of literature and laughter, life-lesson seeker and trainer, fierce mama bear and force of nature. She raised two girls despite the storms of life and love and passed on her fierceness, strength, humor, intelligence, quirkiness, and deficits.

She is my teacher and trainer. My best friend and strongest ally. Forbidding victimhood and welcoming humor at every turn, she raised two girls to be just like her, better in some ways, but never as strong as she.

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About the Creator

Lena Folkert

Alaskan Grown Freelance Writer 🤍 Lover of Prose

Former Deckhand & Barista 🤍 Always a Pleaser & Eggshell-Walker

Lifelong Animal Lover & Whisperer 🤍 Ever the Student & Seeker

Traveler 🤍 Dreamer 🤍 Wanderer

Happily Lost 🤍 Luckily in Love

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