A Broken Body

Carol Abbott Butterfield

A Broken Body

I have always known that people learn a lot from their parents.  But, it seems as if almost all of the focus, I’m aware of, is how much we learn from our parents during our “formative” years.  These are a person’s young years, generally believed to be somewhere before the age of six or eight.  And, these years are indeed important.  They create a foundation for a person’s life in many, many ways.  But, over the last few years, and especially the last couple of months, I’ve been able to receive a new bolster to my own foundation for living an abundant life.

This new strengthening came upon me in an unexpected way, in an unexpected form.  The form was that of a broken body, my mother’s.

I learned many things from my mother during the course of my life, but perhaps not nearly as much as I learned from her as I saw her wither right before my eyes.  Looking back, I can remember visiting her in the hospital on several occasions as she was being treated for fractures in her spine.  She was in immense and continuous pain for her last four years or so, yet she never gave up hope.  She never stopped working to get better.

When her heart began to fail she could no longer take care of herself.  We surrounded her as a family and provided her with love and the best care we could obtain for her.  Still, she would gasp for breath, desire to do more for her self, and act as if she was just fine.

We all knew she wasn’t, just fine, and felt helpless as we watched her pain increase and her strength drain away.  Had we been able to remove her struggles and make her whole again we would have done so.  But we couldn’t.  She battled on with bravery and encouragement for all to receive.  And I received a lot.  When I visited with her I was constantly amazed at her strength of character.

That admiration continued right up to the night, two days before she passed away.  She and I sat next to each other talking well into the night.  It was just the two of us and of course, she was asking me about the welfare of my three daughters.  We remembered our times together with fondness and she reassured me of her love for all of us.  When I told her that my daughter Kilee was going to have her first child she simply beamed at me and said, “You’ll be a wonderful Grandpa!”  I’ve never seen her so happy.

Unfortunately her life ended a short two days later.  But, the lessons she taught me over her last days, months and years burn bright in my memory.  A broken body could not keep her from teaching me the real meaning of perseverance, internal strength of character, the importance of keeping a healthy sense of humor, optimism, and the value of enduring love.

May we all follow her example by living a life time of formative years!