Elizabeth R - Vancouver

Three large boxes of Tupperware lids missing their bottoms; 22 boxes of books; 594 cups and mugs, several emblazoned with gold and yellow flowers and one dedicated to “the world’s goofiest golfer,” nine travel alarm clocks; 142 pillow cases in assorted patterns and colours; seven exercise contraptions with hand grips and foot stirrups connected by a stretchy steel spring: all of this was just a small portion of my mother’s collection of stuff.
I helped her sell, donate, ship and trash her stuff when she moved to Florida this summer. I handled so much stuff, that I feel like stripping my own house bare, sleeping on moss and eating off slabs of bark.
My mother would never do that. Stuff means a lot to her. Born in 1917, she is a tiny woman whose quick steps and busy hands mask a hip replacement and decades of arthritis. She has been busy since she was 12. She cared for her younger brother while her parents struggled to keep factory jobs. It was the Depression, so the jobs were on-again, off-again. Her family ate meals of potatoes and not much else. My mother blames the plum-sized bunion that pains her today on her parents’ inability to buy their children proper shoes. When I helped pack her stuff, she had 63 pairs, most unworn.
She also had tricks: two vanishing-ink pens, nine magic ring tricks and 14 assorted card tricks with folded instruction sheets. And she had accumulated 82 books on training dogs, raising various breeds of dogs and housebreaking puppies. But she never owned a dog. I found a book on Shetland sheep dogs in her library. “My friend has two shelties,” I said.
“Take it and give it to her,” said my mother, adding the book to the sofa-sized pile of stuff she had deposited in a bedroom for me to take home. “A lot of people have dogs. It’s nice to give them a book.”
My mother has given stuff to friends and family, but seldom to herself. All those unworn shoes? All of the 21 blouses I found in a closet with price tags still attached? She will probably never wear the stuff, and she probably never had much of an intention to.
She toiled most of her life taking care of five children and my dad, a demanding, irritable man. In a letter she wrote to me before he died last year, a letter I tossed away because I could not bear to ever again read a certain line, my mother said she had looked back upon her life. The line contained an uncharacteristic lament: “I regret that I didn’t have more fun.”
But she tries hard to make sure everyone else has it. When I was a child she invented craft projects for me and my sisters. Later she collected the magic tricks for our children. For the adults, she has gathered jokes—in three shelves of joke books and in her memory. “Did you hear about the man who fell in the upholstery machine?” she quipped, as we packed a donation box of my father’s clothes. “When they pulled him out, he was completely recovered.”
She easily parted with my dad’s things, but her own stuff was more dear. My mother wanted to discuss every item I was sorting, down to a half-pack of toothpicks, to decide whether she or someone she knew might have use for it. Eventually I realized that she clung to her stuff not just because it gave her security, but also because it gave her life meaning. “My husband was always working on his business,” she said. “When I wanted to talk with him, he would say, ‘Not now, dear.’ So I would go shopping.”
She shopped for stuff, thinking of what other people might need. Whenever she visited my home, she brought boxes of stuff. A few years ago, she saw crystal candle holders on sale. She bought 16 pairs. “A gift to give people when you visit them,” she explained during the packing marathon, as she placed the delicate crystal in the bedroom for me.
When she took her afternoon naps this summer, I would creep into that room, remove much of the stuff and put it in the garage for the three-day moving sale we were planning. There was little space left for browsers among the tables, boxes and shelves of stuff in the double garage, but at least 100 people squeezed through. My mother’s artificial flower collection went fast. We managed to sell all of her furniture and enough dishes, small appliances, games and knick-knacks to fill a large pick-up truck.
We sorted what was left along with boxes of non-garage sale items. There were trash piles, donation piles and ship-to-Florida piles, as well as the bedroom take-to-Vancouver assortment. Ultimately, 41 boxes went to Florida. Eighty-four boxes and 29 black plastic bags of stuff were donated. Canned goods went to the food bank. I didn’t count the number of trash bags we discarded.
It took almost a month total to pack, but suddenly, unbelievably, her house was bare.
My mother now lives in the southern part of the continent, and it will take a plane trip rather than a car trip to visit her. As I sat last week sorting though the stuff she gave me, stuff that so fully filled the trunk and back of my car that you couldn’t squeeze another dishcloth in, I found one of those fun items: a game of Jack Straws, a version of pick-up-sticks with tiny shovels, ladders and pitch forks.
I will play the game with my four-year-old grandson and tell him about his great grandmother. I will tell him about the interesting time I had helping her pack and about the very most wonderful thing of all the stuff she gave me. She gave me love.

Onni M - Vancouver

CHANNA VELLER MILNER

My mother died of a heart attack in 1981. She was in her 70s. It wasn't until after her death that I realized she was more than what I had experienced with her.
My mother was exotically beautiful as a young woman She was a couturier in Kovna, Lithuania, and all the finest ladies of the city came to her salon. She was a successful businesswoman with several women working under her.
All that changed when Hitler invaded Lithuania in 1941.

Read the rest of Onni's compelling story of her mother in Ultimate Stories

Glenda M -

My Mother Helen L. Hill always wrote in red pen.

Helen was born in Ancaster, Ont. Canada. She was the daughter of a Dairy Farmer, the middle child of 3. Her parents were Hungarian. Her mother’s mother, my great grandmother, came from Hungary when she was just 13, married and with child. She lived on the prairies of Saskatchewan.

My great grandmother told me things I've never forgotten. She was a women who spoke Hungarian always. She wore a dress that was 30 years old and you'd never know it, unless she showed you where she patched it. Her home was the cleanest I’ve ever known. I looked up to her and still speak of her, driving across Canada, many times I've thought of her and spoke about where I came from as I drove...

To read the rest of Glenda's story of Helen go to Ultimate Stories.

Mom Show 3 launched

Thank you to everyone who has submitted stories, poems and photos about their mothers. It's been wild to open my email everyday and see what people have sent to bear witness to the women who are our mothers. There is so much diversity and heartfelt candor in this world. Please keep sending in photos and stories as the spirit moves you throughout the year.

We just finished our big My Mother's Story show here at Unity of Vancouver and once again experienced the power that comes from releasing these stories into the bigger world. Our two shows were packed with people weeping and laughing (sometimes at the same time) and the stories we're hearing back of the conversations that happened on the way home after the show have made the hair on my arms stand up once again. I hope that the people who have submitted their full stories (found in Ultimate Stories) will have found a similar experience. If so, can you tell me what happened? Was it good for you?

I'm off to be on a forum panel sponsored by Full Figure Theatre in Vancouver entitled "Who Am I To Speak?" that will look at the effects of speaking our truth - psychologically, historically, socially. We want to collect more of these stories on the impact of telling your mother's story or what has happened after you've witnessed someone else telling their mother's story. One moment of spoken clarity can often bring down a whole crumbling edifice of belief or open hearts and minds to accept brand new thoughts. Families have been transformed by one person asking questions. If you have a story about anything like this, please send it along.

In the meantime, here's a great mother's story:

The New York Times
Op-Ed Columnist

Call Your Mother

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: May 11, 2008

Much of the outlook that infuses my own writings was bred into me from my mom, who believed that even if pessimists were usually right, optimists were behind great changes. Full article here

Chris C - sound engineer CBC Vancouver

My mother, Norma, was born in Hyas Saskatchewan in 1923. When she was about 4 years of age her mother died in childbirth (with twins who also died). My mother told me of a tornado that moved the grain silo 5 miles down the road and a barn that they never found. Of the time when her 19 year old brother was head-kicked by a horse and died with the family crowded around him two days later. And of the time when she and some of her freinds went skinny-dipping at a secluded pond.

Read Norma's Story by Chris in the Ultimate Stories section

Julia F

I wrote this poem for my mother Erika Begemann a few years ago for Mother's Day. I wanted to express my thanks for the wonderful fairy tales and poems and stories she shared with me when I was a child, from the forests of Germany where I was born to southern Ontario, where I grew up

My Mother’s Gift

I remember your garden still
a sweet-scented, sun drenched hum
and a sheltered leafy peace
like your safe arms around me.

The dark forests of my childhood
transformed by your stories
into enchanted kingdoms
infinite with mystery and delight.

And later you gave me
the poetry of love and longing,
of the soul’s sadness and redemption,
in the language of castles and roses.

You showed me moonlit sonatas
and the great symphonies,
the sound of children’s angel voices rising
to join the music of the spheres.

I thank you now and always
for revealing the secret realms
of magic and beauty and imagination,
for helping me to spread my own gossamer wings.

Patrick R - Victoria

This is a wonderful idea.

My mother passed away last fall.

The first Raging Grannies were founded in her living room.

Read Bess's Story by Patrick in the Ultimate Stories section.

Karren D -

I never met my mother until I was 45 years old and only knew her for thirteen years. I was adopted as a child and spent a life long search for her. I found out when I was 12 years old and made a vow to myself that I would find my mother if it was the last thing that I ever did. After years of searching and a lot of dead ends my vow to myself finally came true.

Read Bernita's Story by her daughter Karren in our Ultimate Stories section.

Kathy F - Vancouver

When it comes to initiative and perseverance, my mother is unusually gifted – I have always enviously admired her ability to focus and “get down to business” with whatever she puts her mind to. She wanted to play the cello for years, and when she was 40 years old, she bought one. I remember the day she brought it home – it seemed impossibly enormous to me, especially compared to my sister’s violin, which now looked miniature by comparison. She began lessons, and often practiced in the evenings. I have warm, comfortable memories of hearing her practicing down in the living room as I was falling asleep, and sometimes I’d be woken in the morning by her practicing, too. My mother turned 60 last year, and has played in an orchestra for many years now. Her dedication with the cello is just one of the many examples she has given me over the years of how to go after what your heart desires.

James K - somewhere in Canada

My mother married after WWII and had five kids in the next eight years. When the fifth was born it became apparent that the marriage was falling apart. Divorce wasn't fashionable in small-town Canada in the fifties but my mother decided to end an abusive relationship and bring up five kids on her own. She held down two jobs for years and yet we never felt left out or neglected. She held her head up high and refused charity and welfare, but members of the community, both male and female found ways to help her survive. In this poem, which took me years to complete, I tried to convey the pride and the gratitude that I have for my mother.

My Mother's Eyes

Folks often say I have my mother's eyes,

But what is more; she taught me how to see,

And when a rainbow's wonder fills the skies

To her I owe the joy it brings to me.

And when an author's grasp of human grace

Leaves tears of wonder dancing down my face

They are my mother's tears, and hers the heart

That feels a painter's fears, a poet's art.

And when my child, if frightened by a storm,

Or fraught with fever, calls out in alarm,

I speak the words once whispered in my ear:

"Don't be afraid my son, for I am here."