The Strong Woman

Heroes are made, not born.  So are strong women.
As a gender, females are petted and pampered as children.  Some of us never make it past the Entitled Princess role.  Others of us transcend the make-believe world into reality fairly early in life.  Nature or nurture?  Who knows?  Why should it matter?  To quote an overused saying, it is what it is. Nothing can change that.

I've just returned home from nearly a month at my sister's in Illinois to attend and assist with the funeral and funeral aftermath of her husband of 55 years.  My brother-in-law had Fronto-Temporal Degeneration.  Dementia.  He was first diagnosed in 2011, although the signs were creeping in several years before that.  Shari endured untold years of disrupt and tantrums and a mind that was slowly, slowly slipping away, made worse by the fact that he knew it and fought with it every step of the way.  He was "[raging] at the dying of the light"...and she had to figure out how to get them both through every day of that.  She kept him home and took care of him, in spite of the increasing isolation, until health issues took him to the hospital, perhaps one month before he passed.

Understand that she and I were always in daily contact by email or phone.  All I could do was sit back and provide words from 200 miles away.  I visited when I could--the last time in August just before his first trip to the hospital.  I was worried about her; worried from the standpoint of wondering how much more she could take.  During his entire 3-week hospital stay--one week the first time, and two weeks just a week after that--she spent almost every night in the hospital with him, just to help keep him calm.  He really didn't want her out of his sight.  No one else mattered to him, as it should be. Then, when the doctors said they could do nothing more for him, she was faced with The Decision because of the prognosis of the quality of his life then.  There was no going back.  I think she was scared and feeling vulnerable and alone.  She did the right thing by putting him in hospice care, then started the vigil of being there every day as he declined into the inevitable oblivion.  Strong?  Yes.  What other choice did she have?  There was nothing else she could do that would honor her husband's life and allow him to pass peacefully.

Over the last five years or so, I have seen/heard each of her two daughters and a grandchild or two tell her that she is a "strong woman" and that they get that from her.  Ha!  They don't have a clue how to be strong like she is!  Throughout it all, only one of them hasn't asked for/taken money to help them out of financial situations, not all of which are legit.  Daddy/Grandpa was dying, but oh well!

So, how did my sister become a Strong Woman?  She, like me, was born with it and lived it.  Our grandmother was the matriarch of the family.  She was born in a Poor House in Savannah, IL, of a crippled mother and no known father.  Orphaned by age 12, she was raised by an aunt and had to find her way in the world.  She became a teacher, traveling around to find a place to be.  She ended up as a school teacher on the frontier of South Dakota where my grandfather from Illinois gathered her up to marry her and bring her home to the farm in IL.  She was too proud to admit her humble beginnings, so she over-achieved.  She raised three really respectable kids during the Great Depression when they weren't always sure if they could keep the farm.  The livestock and garden provided food when there was otherwise no money.

Years later, my dad went off to war with the Navy, and my mother and two sisters lived at the farmhouse with the grandparents.  (I wasn't born yet.)  One fine April day, the house caught fire and burned to the ground when my mother was in town.  When she returned to see the house mere smoldering ruins, she began to cry, and our grandmother who met her at the car said, "Don't you start!  I have been through this whole day without crying, and you will, too!"  And that, my friends, tells the whole story of where my sister's strength comes from.  A scant few months later, the youngest of the sisters, a mere toddler, strangled to death from a blinds cord hanging too close to her crib at the grandparents' new home in a garage.  That sealed the fate of the women's strength.  Get through it.  Get over it.  Move on.  What other choice is there??  Or, as my friend Phyllis would say, "Don't fold up.  You'll just have to unfold again."

I think my sister's children are all expecting her to fall apart in grief.  I know better.  She will have her moments, which she is entitled to have.  Will she feel all alone?  Yes.  Will she be scared?  Of course. Will she fall apart?  Not on your life!  She started grieving the loss of her husband long before he died.  She carried herself well all during his ceremonies--better than some of those who had no real reason to behave as they did.  She has taken control.  Why?  Because she has to.  Who will do it if not she?  She's pretty awesome, in my estimation.

In the midst of all of the comments from family about how strong she is, there is no commentary about how old she is.  She puts up a strong front...but the fact is that my sister will turn 75 on Pearl Harbor Day in December.  She doesn't look 75.  She doesn't act 75.  Yet it stands to reason that the family should no longer expect her to finance their family meals or holidays, or keep the swimming pool open for their pleasure unless they are willing to come and do the work.  Ultimately, it is up to her.  In the meantime, she is my hero.

Shari Andrew wasn't born with her hand out.  She and her husband worked their buns off through thick and thin to have what they have.  Now half of that income is gone.  I hope the rest of the troops are ready because my sister, the strong woman, is about the become a whole lot stronger to shut them all down and take care of herself, first.

Are you listening, Shari??