A dear friend showed me a feminist calendar featuring some of the most amazing women and their stories. Of course I had to have one and even purchased a couple for some that I know who appreciate such things. In glancing through the featured ladies I found myself thinking about strong women and their untold stories. That and the present day economic struggles brought me to remembrances of my mother. 

We are all feeling the pinch of higher prices for almost everything that we depend on to survive from one day to the next. For many of us paying more is an annoyance but not a life threatening moment. For others it is a matter of choosing what they will have to give up to meet the daunting demands of the present day economy. 

I am all too familiar with the concept of living on the edge. When my father was alive our family enjoyed a state of prosperity that allowed us to purchase luxuries, travel, and feel comfortable that our way of life would continue without interruption. His sudden and unexpected death threw my little family into a tailspin. Everything about our way of life changed from that point forward. 

My mother was a typical woman of the nineteen fifties. She had been a stay at home mom whose routine centered on keeping the home fires burning while my engineer father provided a better than average lifestyle for all of us. With his passing she had to become ingenious about how to meet our basic needs. 

As bad luck would have it we did not even have a home when Daddy died. We had just moved back to Houston from California and were planning to purchase a luxury home in an upscale part of town. Upon his death we did not even have a car because his wreck resulted in a total loss of the one automobile that we had at that moment. My mother inherited a responsibility that was in a shambles. Luckily she was a brilliant woman who figured out how to balance a thousand balls in the air to keep us safe and warm. 

My mother quietly and courageously pieced our broken world back together. With the help of my uncle she found a house that was a reasonable choice given her greatly reduced income. She purchased a car so basic that it had nary a bell or whistle to be found. It was an ugly thing both inside and out but it ran like a top with the monitoring of yet another uncle who was a shade tree mechanic. All in all Mama provided our little family a good life.

In retrospect I realize how difficult it was for my mother to keep food on the table, lights on in the house and clothing on our backs. She was a kind of miracle worker who relied on her knowledge of home economics to keep us mostly unaware of the challenges that she faced every single day. 

In the beginning she relied upon government assistance until she was eventually able to find a job. She stayed within a severe budget but was never really able to accumulate a savings account. Hers was a month to month struggle but she never complained. Instead she knew how to take a pot roast and turn it into at least three meals. We almost never had cookies or soda or any frivolous items in our pantry and we obeyed a firm rule of only eating what she offered us. To take something randomly as a snack was a mortal sin that would mean that she would be short of ingredients for dinner for the rest of the family. 

We stayed thin but healthy. We had few visits to a doctor because such a luxury would have stretched the budget a bit too far. We went to a free clinic on Canal Street for our immunizations. We would sit on hard chairs in a huge room for hours before it was our turn to get the shots. Mama entertained us and kept us well fed with sandwiches from home. We took it for granted that everyone went to such a place for their medical needs. 

I would be an adult before I fully realized the extent to which my mother pushed herself to provide us with the basic needs of every human. My gratitude for her efforts has only grown over the decades as I think of how calm and reassuring she was even as she must have been terrified at times that the whole thing might fall apart. 

Mama lived on the edge of life for all of the days after my father died but she always kept a smile and a spirit of gratitude for what she had. She could take a dollar and stretch it as though it was a rubber band. She never once complained about her fate but I am certain that the pressure of it wore her down. It was only after we were grown enough to care for ourselves that she fell apart and showed signs of the mental illness that must have been brewing inside of her all along. Even then she celebrated the fact that the people at her job were so supportive of her and she boasted about the insurance that paid for her care. 

I don’t know how my mother remained so optimistic, but she did. She had the instincts of a trader when it came to purchasing anything. She used her wits and her faith that God was always by her side. Not many of us would have been able to pull off the magic that she produced out of a wing and a prayer. 

There came a time when my mother-in-law took my hands and urged me to always remember that my mother was one of the greatest women that she had ever known. At the time I thought it was a sweet idea but I did not actually think of Mama as a heroine in our midst. Time and distance has allowed me to fully understand that my mother, Ellen Little, was as remarkable as any woman has ever been on this earth. Most people will never know her name but I was blessed to be the recipient of her brilliance and largesse. It was my good fortune to have such an amazing role model to guide me through life. She showed me how to overcome any challenge that comes my way but I will never be able to tackle such things with the joy and finesse that she possessed. I can only tell her story and hope that it inspires someone somewhere who is dealing with a terrible fate. Perhaps they will find the courage they need to carry on.