Walk this way

My mother is a woman filled with strength, courage, and determination. When she wants something, she gets it, especially if my dad's involved. ;) I jest. But she's my hero and she's accomplish so many things that I hold in high esteem.

She took off by herself in Washington, DC and strode onto the subway. She found her way to an pro-choice rally and hollered her thoughts out to the world, some time in the 1980's. She joined a union, a nearly all male union, and ran for different positions. She won some and lost some, while feeling the sting of sexism from men who hadn't yet felt the presence of woman in their workplace. Well, felt it they did. She was on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Comission to make Martin Luther King, Jr. a legal holiday in our state. More than once she and her fellow members heard the words, "Why would we want that to be a holiday. There aren't any black people here."

Words of ignorance that do not understand that we are all in this together. There is only one planet and one race of people, human beings. That's it and regardless of the distinctions we try to draw between ourselves, we're all from the same stock.

So, my mother has done many more things, accomplish several more goals, and changed lives in very different ways. Now, my mom cannot be a part of those things as she once was nor as she may want to be. As aforementioned in a previous blog, my mother had back surgery at the end of June. That was her third back surgery and what was supposed to be the miracle, the cure.

However, it may have been snake oil, but by no one's fault. She began hurting about two weeks ago. Pain scorches her nerves. Another doctor's visit, another X-ray, and another round of bad news. Her spine has shifted. It is crooked like someone with severe scoliosis and this curveture is causing the nerves to be pinched. She may have to have another surgery which they are hoping to post-pone until December, six months after the last surgery. Four more vertebrae may have to be fused with pins, rods, and cages. They are hoping she can hold out even longer, but the doctor said it was up to her and how much pain she can handle. But right now, it would be too great a risk of infection to open her up again.

It's hard to watch your hero fall and not be able to get up.