My mother’s life reflections

I dedicate this first blog to the memory of my mother, Bernice Henry, a woman who lived life to the fullest and lived it on her own terms.

In June of 2013, I sat down with my mother and began to record her life reflections, those moments in time that she remembered from her life that held special meaning for her.  I began to ask questions, but she wasn’t listening to any of them. She just started talking and didn’t stop. At first I thought she wasn’t hearing me.  But then I realized that she just had so much to say that the questions were irrelevant to her.  I stopped asking, and let her just speak. And she did, for hours.

For the next month, whenever we met or spoke on the phone, my mother would tell me stories or add things that she remembered.   I read her back everything she said, giving her an opportunity to edit as she went along. Fifteen pages later, my mother felt that we had captured her life reflections, stories that showed who she was and how she came to be the person she was now, at 95.

In October, my mother took ill, and was taken to hospital. For the next two weeks, she wasn’t fully aware of her surroundings and without eating or drinking, we were told that she did not have long to live.  I brought to the hospital one morning her “life reflections”.  It was a day I will never forget. With many members of our family around her bedside, I began to read aloud all fifteen pages of her story. While I read, we all watched my mother’s expressions.  Her eyes were closed but she was clearly hearing every word. When I read funny parts from her growing up years, her lips curled in a smile. When I spoke about the death of her brother who was killed by a drunk driver years earlier, her breathing quickened. The family heard things about my mother that they had not known and my mother could hear her life replayed. It was for me and my family a sacred hour. I sensed that she too felt that her life not only mattered but that she would continue to be part of our lives when she departed. She passed away on October 13th, 2013.

This experience showed me more than anything else the value of taking the time to record our legacies. One day years from now, perhaps her great grandchild will ask where her great Grams came from and she will be given these 15 pages to read.

She will learn what it was like growing up in Peterborough and how her great Grams spent hours fixing her hair in beautiful, creative ways so that people wouldn’t notice the acne on her face that made her feel so self-conscious. She will read about the challenges my mother had losing her father at age 16 and watching her mother try to raise six children with little money. She will admire the courage and strength it took for my mother to carry on after my dad died at the age of 47 and go on to raise three children while running a business. She will be astounded by the breadth of my mother’s artwork — sculptures, portraits, landscapes, silk ties, scarves and more and be delighted to learn that mom took herself to university for the first time in her 60s and successfully completed two degrees in Fine Art and in Fashion Design.  She will definitely learn of my mother’s resilience and positive approach to life despite years of life-threatening illnesses.

I feel blessed that we had that time together to record her memories.  Her words will benefit generations to come. And I am blessed to have had her in my life for so long.

As she always said, “life can be beautiful”.