The Life of An Amazing Woman

This blog is about the journey that my siblings and I are on today. We are caring for our aging mother and the changes are happening so fast that it is sometimes hard to keep up. This is a journey that we don’t know how to navigate, but we are learning.

My mother, Annette is 91 years old. She currently still lives in the five-bedroom house that my father had built for us when we moved to the east coast from Seattle. I was the youngest of five kids when we moved.

All of us were raised in this house, playing kick-the-can and camping out in tents in the backyard and playing outside with neighbors until it was too dark to see. My mother has lived a vibrant life there, working as a Registered Nurse for a short time before deciding to stay home and raise 5 kids. We lived a great life because of my parents. My mother was sweet and loving and she lived her life for us. She made delicious meals and baked like nobody else’s mom I know. We spent our summer days at the pool, on the swim team and diving team, and by night fall we had played so hard that our feet were filthy and exhaustion allowed for a solid nights’ sleep. We always had to wash our feet before getting into her clean sheets though!

Annette grew up on a farm in Red Lake Falls, MN with one older sister and 4 younger brothers. She was raised on fresh air, hard work and family. Not having enough money for a nursing education, she wrote to a few different schools to ask if she could join their program where she could work off her tuition. She went to St. Cloud, MN, where she got her degree in nursing. She and some girlfriends moved to Portland to work. They shared an apartment and one of the roommates started dating a doctor. My mother was invited to come along on a double date to accompany the doctors friend, Hans. This is when she met my dad, a very recently widowed father of two little boys, ages 4 and 2. My parents married and she became an instant mother of my two oldest brothers, Larry and Marty, continuing to grow their family with another boy, John, my sister Joanne, and then me.

Life on the east coast was good. The climate was great with all four seasons to enjoy one of her biggest passions, gardening. With just under an acre of land, my mother worked tirelessly digging, planting, and replanting. She structured gardens and found trees to put on this newly developed property that was void of any vegetation. She was in her element, both as a mother and as a gardener. Her talents as a seamstress were amazing and we often wore outfits that she made herself. Many years later, both my sister and I would proudly wear stunning wedding gowns that she made herself. 

A devout Catholic, my mother made sure we were dressed and at church every Sunday. My mother was a disciplinarian when it was needed, but she was a kind and loving woman and our family has been so fortunate that she belongs to us.

Here we are heading to church on Sunday, matching jumpers and all!