Today would have been my mother’s 101st birthday. That seems impossible – she was only 56 when she died. I had just turned 25, so 56 seemed pretty ancient but now it seems so young. I wrote the following essay two years ago as part of a class on working with ancestors* and it feels right to share it now. I am a grandmother myself and have recently become a great-grandmother so I know the fierce love of a mother for her children’s children and beyond.

My mother, Rowena (named after her mother), was the middle sister – and she wasn’t supposed to live to adulthood. As a child, she contracted rheumatic fever and had to stay in bed for a year, a fate which seemed interminable and worse than death to the little tomboy. When the year was over, her heart had sustained irreparable damage and her doctor-father had to break the news to his wild spirited child that she would never be a mother and would probably die before becoming an adult.

Rowena didn’t want to believe him, and she vowed that nothing would hold her back. She didn’t have time to waste after all… you didn’t say No to my fierce mother.

Once out of bed, she went back to school and graduated with her class. She married her high school sweetheart, reportedly breaking a few hearts along the way. She wasn’t considered a good catch – she was too wild, and she couldn’t bear children, and well, what mother would want a woman like that for her son? It took a strong man to defy his mother and marry the sensual goddess the tomboy had become.

She loved her body and wanted pleasure from it in return for the care she was willing to give it. She catapulted herself into the world and the young couple moved first to the nearest big city and then to an even bigger city three states away.

Life wasn’t easy for a modern-minded woman in the middle of the 20^th century. She was fiercely independent and decided in time that her marriage wasn’t right for her, though there was a stay of execution when a local doctor arranged a private adoption, and the barren woman became a mother.

Rowena’s health wasn’t strong, but she found creative ways of parenting. I was never as feisty as she was, and perhaps that was for the best. I remember spending long hours reading together rather than exploring the great outdoors as my mother would probably rather have been doing. Her courage never failed, nor did her wild spirit go quietly into the shadows. What she did, she did with gusto.

That carpool lane across the Golden Gate Bridge? It was her private freeway. That left turn arrow on a busy road – she saw it as a signal to floor the accelerator and cross three lanes of traffic before the oncoming cars could shift into gear. Her marriage? That still wasn’t working, so she divorced her husband, accepting full responsibility for her choice. And when he remarried, she wrapped a gift, bundled up my 5-year-old self and delivered the wedding present to the new couple with the words We’re going to get along, for Kimberly’s sake. And they did, which is an absolute tribute to both women (and also my father). She loved and babysat for my father’s new baby when she was born a few years later, and she marched up to her former mother-in-law, the one who had never approved of her, and announced that she was going to find her an apartment so she wouldn’t overstay her welcome in my father’s new home. Rowena was gutsy.

She was in and out of hospital and her weakened heart was a constant concern – but it didn’t stop her. She tried new treatments, including a surgery that replaced her faulty valve with one from a pig. It was quite a novel thing in the 1960’s but it bought her some time, and that mattered – because she wanted to be a grandmother. An impossible dream for a woman with a death sentence pumping in her chest? Yes… but no.

My mother taught me to drive a car as soon as I could see over the steering wheel in case she needed to get to a hospital faster than an ambulance could get to her. She took herself out for daily walks and did her yoga stretches long before yoga hit the mainstream market, to keep herself as strong as possible. But she also hid her jewellery at night in case she didn’t wake up in the morning, only telling me where to find it. She was a realist.

And finally, against all odds, the day came. I was expecting, and my mother might just live long enough to hold a grandchild in her arms.

Legend has it that when Kirsten was born, my mother made the 40-mile drive in 20 minutes, with a pot of her signature chicken soup on the passenger seat. She arrived in time to give her new grand baby her first bath in the kitchen sink.

My mother died the following year, just before my son was born, so she didn’t get to hold him or my youngest daughter, or watch my family grow, but her influence has always been felt. I’ve called on her often over the years and I offer her memory and strength to anyone who knows to call on the dead for support in navigating the challenges of life. Need to do something hard? Need to be fierce? Ask Rowena for help. She was – and is – the personification of fierce determination.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

*Rowena was originally written and presented in 2022 as part of Perdita Finn’s Take Back the Magic, a class on working with ancestors. I cannot recommend her books and classes highly enough.