I don’t really think my Mom was a stoic, but compared to me she was.
I remember going to Vanderhoof back in 2006 to help my father clean up his home. He was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and was a bit of a hoarder. I wasn’t in a great place in my life, my career had gone a bit sideways, and he was offering me a branch to get me out of a ditch that could have become a bit of a professional grave. I flew up to Prince George and he picked me up and we drove to Vanderhoof to his amazing heritage home on the banks of the Nechako River. It took me hours to clean one room up enough to find my way to a bed to sleep in, he really didn’t throw anything out. It was a challenging week filled with arguments and rationalizations over the strangest things … like a milk bag jug that had been used as a clothespin container on our back porch when I was a kid. It came down to a debate over the fact that it was used as a cat food scoop for the feral cats he cared for (he’d had them spayed/neutered so he truly did care for them and was invested), but he had two so I made him choose one. It was a difficult hill.
It was an emotionally exhausting week and I drove into Prince George one day to spend a day/night with my Mom. While there I completely fell apart and dissolved into a puddle of tears.
Mom got up and went to the kitchen and started banging pots and pans around while she started dinner and I went from a sobbing wreck to uncontrollable laughter.
She turned and looked at me questioningly and I blurted out “You really have no idea what to do when I cry, do you?”
I loved my Mom, so very much. But she was not a “there there dear child” sort. I suppose it made me stronger, though I have had a life filled with emotional challenges that I probably haven’t navigated as well as I could have. But I really did admire her ability to withstand the storms of life with the strength she appeared to.
That said…I also saw her sob and go through a LOT of Kleenex while we watched Charlotte’s Web… I also remember her taking me to see The Fox and the Hound and she sobbed her way through that too.
Real people crying….stone cold.
Animated cartoon sadness….puddle of emotions….so there’s that.
Honestly, Mom was awesome.
But back to that stoic thing.
I cry when I am angry of frustrated and I hated that. I hated it enough that, following a Reveene show at Vanier Hall, I actually considered hypnosis to ablate my ability to cry. I have always hated crying when I am angry because I felt it signalled weakness….rather than reality….the reality being the fact that I am crying because of the strength it is usually taking me to not explode with rage.
And (besides animated movies) I never saw my mother cry.
Ever!
And as I thought about this event in my life, my eyes fell to the book sitting in the middle of my coffee table.
And it became today’s photo.
Stoicism is something I’ve been interested in over the years. An ancient Greek and Roman philosophy stoicism emphasizes self-control, ethics, and logic. A way of looking at things from all sides. A means of self reflecting on one’s own actions and role in situations. A way of analyzing that any situation has many sides and that mine is not necessarily the only one. A way of remaining calm under pressure. All things I value.
But damn the books are ponderous tomes.
We are excellent judges of others, but we are far better lawyers for ourselves. So when I feel strongly about something I try to understand what I am missing, what I am not considering…why I might be wrong. It’s a really difficult thing to do and looking in the mirror can mean sometimes what’s looking back is not the reality I think it is. It can be uncomfortable….but it’s good to be uncomfortable with myself, to reflect on why I might be wrong about what I think I am right about, it’s a way to grow.
About a week ago I stumbled across this one….bite sized chunks of a philosophy I admire, and I had to pick it up.
The world around us cannot usually be molded into what we think it should be and, more often than not, we need to find a way to navigate around the obstacles in our way.
Maybe someday I can yet be like Mom….I already bawl during the animated movies….so there’s that.
