May-May on Mothers Day

I first met her in the summer of 1967. I was ten years old, prior to my fifth grade year in school. It started as a trial run. I had been living in St. Paul Children’s Home with other children with no parents, part of the young group who were gradually transforming from deprived children into social misfits and juvenile delinquents. Occasionally one of the group would be called to a foster family, but actual adoption was almost unheard of at my age. Yet here we were. Mother and Dad had married in 1961, I think. She was now 39 and he was 49. I would be the first child for both. This was an unlikely threesome.

Mom did everything possible to make me feel comfortable. When I arrived, we were in the process of buying our house on Skyline Parkway in Duluth, Minnesota, but still lived on the more rural Miller Trunk Highway, which was busy and dangerous and not very conducive to meeting other kids. So during the day while Dad went to work it was Mother and me, and not having any experience in the art of motherhood, she had not yet learned to say no. So we did whatever I wanted, which meant hours spent out on the lawn hitting baseballs to each other, and when I tired of that playing board games in the house—chess, Yahtzee, Milles Borne and others. I wanted a pet and she got me a calico cat, which I nicknamed Snoopy, an ironical homage to my favorite character in Peanuts.

After a year the trial turned into a formal adoption and we three made our lives together. It had never been easy for Mom. Her first marriage was bad and she divorced before it got worse. Her marriage to Dad was almost inevitable, given they were baptized in the same church on the same night, were both Finnish, and once Mom’s divorce was final, both single. But Dad had been a bachelor for 20 years and his ways were not easily changed or adapted to marriage. Plus, mother battled a hereditary mental condition, a chemical imbalance which in those days was generally neither diagnosed nor treated. But like her mother and others in her family, she suffered through periods of deep depression and frustration, although by the early 70’s she was prescribed medication which certainly helped. It was, as far as I could tell, her only imperfection, unless you count that fact that she wasn’t very good at crafts, despite her unfailing enthusiasm.

My memories are full and rich of my mother, but perhaps one thing about her character stands out more than any other. She was a friend to the friendless. If there were people who were lonely, old, feeble or troubled in any way, my mother was there for them. One young boy had great difficulty with his parents (prior to my arrival), and my parents took him in. When my Great Uncle Emil had to be in Duluth for treatment, he stayed with us. When my cousin Howie was a freshman at UMD, we shared a room. When grumpy old widows needed help with their shopping, my parents drove them around, and gave them rides to church and had them over for dinner as well. When those that were unlikable needed a friend, my mother was there without judgment. I have never seen a more selfless heart in any individual.

I learned true religion from my mother—less by precept than by daily example. When I left home after high school we were still great friends, and would have frequent visits and lengthy phone discussions. Once married and with children, I was fortunate to have her nearby most of the time, and will ever be grateful for the love and example she shared with the kids, and only wish it could have been longer. And on this Mother’s Day I humbly pay tribute to May-May, as the kids named her, as the greatest and most profound influence upon my life.