Strength in What Remains

Earlier this summer, my mother and I were driving up Highway 12 in Montana, heading to a camp ground just north of Lolo Hot Springs. We were approaching our destination and my mother casually says "Hey, there is the cabin where I once cleaned up that crime scene."

Had I a gulp of water in my mouth, I would have done a spit take.

Uh. Where you did what?

"Don't you remember when I cleaned up that crime scene?" she asked with all casualness. 

Okay. Let us review. 

I talk about serial killers a lot. 

I'm constantly convinced strangers are murderers. 

My biggest fear is of being stabbed by a stranger while walking down the street. 

I've watched every single episode of Criminal Minds and Bones at least twice. 

I believe, of all the things I would remember about my childhood, that I would remember my mom cleaning up a bloody crime scene.

"I guess you were really young," she tells me. 

Shortly after my parents divorced, my mom was in a financial bind and a family friend, also my T-ball coach, asked if she would be interested in earning some extra money. He worked for the Forest Service and a female ranger had recently returned from vacation to surprise a person who had broken into her cabin and made himself at home. 

She asked him to leave and he thanked her for her hospitality by going outside and grabbing a hoedad which he then used to bludgeon her in an attempt to murder her. Luckily, she already called the authorities and was able to fight him off. He fled into the forest where he was later apprehended.

My mom was called in to clean up the bloody mess. 

"I remember cleaning up the wood and putting pressure on it with a rag but then more blood would just seep out."

You think you know someone and then they surprise you with something new. 

I love my mother, my Mama Llama. She is one of the kindest, most generous, and loving people I know. She is a mom to more people than her own biological children and has spent her adult life taking care of the people in her life whether they need it or not. 

This summer has not been too kind to us.

There was the 10 days of fear when we were afraid for HH, first for her life and then just her quality of life.   And then another 3 weeks of hospital time followed. 

And then just this morning, my mom's best friend passed away. 

Every thing I know about camping and hiking and nature is based on a foundation that KG built during our camping and hiking trips. Only KG and my Mom wouldn't blink an eye at hauling 7 young children and teens into the woods for a 24-mile round trip hike. 

KG, AG, TG, and a friend on top of a mountain near Trapper Peak.

My mom's strength carried her through those uncertain days, when she faced raising three kids suddenly on her own, and it will carry her through this.

She will continue to mother us all, including AG and TG. 

It has been a difficult summer and one that I will be happy to close the door on. 

I'm going to tell you a story that you all have to promise you will never tell BN I shared. He would be mortified. I think. But here goes. 

This past summer, my mom had parked her car up the road a bit from the house. She got out to deal with watering the garden. She did not set the car in park and as she was standing there, the car began to roll backwards towards the house, propane tank, and other vehicles. 

"B-!" she yelled to BN. He turned and saw the car rolling down the hill. They both began to run and my mom made it to the passenger side, thinking she should jump in from the side since she could get pinned by the car were she on the driver's side. But she struggled to reach the break. 

BN, in the mean time, hauled butt to the driver's side. As he was running, his shorts fell down. Instead of tripping or stopping, he was able to step out of the shorts with the grace of an Olympic hurdler and continue his race to stop the car, making it in time to open the door and push on the break, thus saving the day. 

As my Mom tells me this story, I'm laughing. Not just at the hilarity of the situation or the thought of BN running naked down the hill to save my Mom's relatively new car, but I'm laughing at my Mom who is laughing as she tells the story. 

One of the cornerstones of the the lessons my Mom has passed on, aside from "Family is the most important thing" is that you have to laugh at life. It makes it easier. 

Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
And let the young lambs bound
As to the tabor's sound!
We in thought will join your throng,
Ye that pipe and ye that play,
Ye that through your hearts to-day
Feel the gladness of the May!
What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind. --Wordsworth

**Thanks to AG for the pictures.