Inspiration from a Quietly KickA** Mom

I can still picture her now wearing an old, light blue oxford and holding her weapon of choice … a paintbrush, a screwdriver, a plumbing tool, a ladder. Mom had that determined look in her eyes with a “don’t mess with me” – or talk to me – attitude as she figured out how to fix things around the house before my dad came home. Words like, “I’m not overpaying some guy to come here and half-fix anything. I’ve got this.”

Boy, did she.

My mom is grit personified. Yes, she is smart and hardworking and thoughtful and funny. But she is more. She has always been determined at anything and everything she decided to do. And do exceptionally well. Five successful careers? Check. Volunteer leadership? Amazing chef? Master matriarch? Check, check, check.

Even as a young girl, Mom mastered English like a native. Having miraculously survived the Holocaust and post-WWII antisemitism in Europe, she arrived in the U.S. from Poland via France only to soon suppress the 4+ languages she spoke fluently and make American English her own.

I think about this incredible woman who raised me. She was my current age when she decided to shift gears from real estate to pursue a master’s degree in social work so that she could counsel job-seeking adults with intellectual disabilities. She just did it! And in the process, she taught me to fight … fight the naysayers, the doubters and the negativity in my own head … to fight for what I wanted. And to never, ever give up.

If only I, too, could master the English language at her level to convey to her how deeply proud of her I am and how much I learned from her, even just by listening and watching. I speak to her every day and I try to share how grateful I am for all of her life’s lessons, for her. If I could be even a fraction of that role model for my own grown children, I know I will have contributed a great deal to the world.