Happy Mother's Day, Mom

Birth defects run in my family. My younger sister and I were both born horribly pigeon-toed. But my youngest sister suffered the most. The entire bone structure of both her legs was terribly unformed; she had no functioning hip sockets and the cartilage in all her joints was missing, especially her ankles and feet. The doctors said she would never walk. But they didn't know who her mother was.

She was sent home from the hospital in a full body cast. It must have weighed a ton, but my mother insisted on holding her and carrying her around because she wanted her to feel nurtured and cared for. Traction and braces were next and countless hours of physical rehabilitation. The doctors still said she would never walk.

I came home from school one day to find my mother standing in the kitchen with tears pouring down her face. She looked at me and said, "If I go in there I will pick up her and if I pick her up she will never walk" and she nodded toward the main room. I went in to see my sister, in her braces, doing what all kids at that age do - pulling herself up to the coffee table and trying to stand. She pulled herself up and fell, pulled herself up and fell. This is a normal process for all children, but made all the harder for her because she was having to navigate not only balance and gravity, but the braces which held her legs in a very unnatural pose. Yet she was determined. She pulled up, she fell down, she got back up. And my mother stood in the kitchen and let her, crying the entire time. She knew if she went in there her heart would call out to her and she would pick my sister up - and stop the process. She knew that allowing my sister to fight her way through this process was the only chance she had to walk. So she let it happen, the way it had to, even though it broke her heart. She put my sister's future above her own emotional needs to make it stop. Picking her up would have comforted my mother, but crippled my sister.

My sister's bone structure is still a mess. But she walked all over Europe on those legs. She kayaks, rides horses and swims. She travels constantly. You would not know to look at her that she has this problem. She bears the pain and the limitations with a grace and a strength I cannot even imagine.

She must have learned if from our mother.

Happy Mother's Day Mom.