Determination
I see Mom again, in my mind’s eye, shoveling snow.
Shoveling snow in her leopard-spotted feminine Sorels, her cream-colored, knit acrylic cap completely covering her hair except for the tiny wisps of gray that stick out from the bottom of the cap. Shoveling snow dressed in her favorite coat, her $35 Costco coat, and her red mittens, using the green plastic shovel that is almost as big as she is.
I am right there again, with her. This is a day that I have time to spend with her, and she has the energy for what she loves. We get ready to go outside. It takes her a while to dress. She sits on a chair in front of the sliding door, and dresses herself, one leopard spotted Sorel, one mitten, at a time. Once she is ready, I put down a towel on the outside step. The residual snow from yesterday’s shoveling has turned to ice, and the traction from the towel will make it safer for her to get onto the deck.
She stands on the deck in the already cleared path, a waist-high ocean of snow around her. Her delicate frame is a little crooked from the twisting and ravaging of Parkinson’s. She looks slight, a little emaciated, yet solid, present. She is a presence for the snow to reckon with.
A pause, longer than a breath – is she looking? Thinking? Planning? Gathering energy? I notice her body, the curvature of her spine, her slightness, and yet her uprightness. She wavers less than normal. Surrounded by pine and fir, and the ocean of snow on the deck, she makes her way to the snow and begins, and in a few short minutes stops for breath. “I’m tired,” she says. Yet she goes on. This is my mom. She goes on.
She hasn’t shoveled snow since last year. Her pattern in the past was to shovel snow twice a day, a half hour in the morning and a half hour in the afternoon. She loves shoveling snow. She misses it, but is unwilling to shovel snow on her own anymore, afraid that if she falls, she won’t be able to get up again on her own. She hasn’t gone for a walk either since the first snowfall; the ice makes it too slippery and dangerous for her already precarious balance. She is becoming increasingly dependent on care and support for so many of her favorite activities.
She shovels that snow, tossing it from one side to the other. She keeps banging up against the bird feeder. Together we clear a space for her to move around one side of it, to make it easier for her. She falls once and can’t get up. “It’s cold,” she says as she sits helplessly in the drift. Yet as soon as she is up, she starts again. She shovels far more snow than I would have ever imagined possible. She even tries to throw it up over the railing like she used to, and most of the time it misses. She goes on anyways. I think of her neighbors, and the respect and admiration they have for her and her fierce determination to never let her illness stop her, for always continuing against all odds. And I understand, on yet another level, the truth of their observation.
Susi Lippuner is exploring her creative side again more actively after a significant time of dormancy. She is a 54-something-year-old Truckee local, and has resided here full time since 2008. Her passions include meditation, music, beauty, the environment, peace, V-Day, and the Adventure Risk Challenge Program.
