Adapted from a recent online discussion.
As many of you know, I lost my mom, Liz Hax, to ALS in 2002. Every fall, I participate in the Walk to Defeat ALS to raise money and awareness to fight this horrific illness.
Carolyn: (Your campaign in your mother's memory) made me wonder, off and on all week, what in your personal opinion made your mom so very special? I have a little girl and I want to do my best by her. — Pittsburgh
That you care so much to get this right will probably go a long way toward making you an excellent parent.
Things I really liked about my mom:
She was there. She listened to our stories, knew our friends, came to our games.
She had a sense of humor that was sly, whimsical and ever-present. She single-handedly started a spaghetti fight, a salad fight and several water fights in our house.
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She hated overheated rooms, self-important people, chitchat, knickknacks, dumb television, makeup, phonies.
She was engaged with the world around her, and didn't seem out of place in a library or at a concert or at a sporting event, in pursuits high and low. She both encouraged varied interests and enjoyed them with us.
She didn't just grant us freedom to decide who we wanted to be. It was clear she enjoyed the process of watching us become those people. When we asked for help, she gave it, but otherwise she stepped back and let us figure things out.
She was as flawed as anyone and, while she made an effort not to inflict her flaws on everyone, she also didn't withhold herself from us. She could, for example, hold a grudge longer than I think ever recorded in human history. She got crabby, burned dinner, said just the wrong thing. No veneer of perfection there.
She also knew that it was possible to teach the value of hard work and delayed gratification, while still allowing moments of unearned, overpriced joy. I miss her every day.
To learn more about ALS: www.alsa.org.
