An Inspiring Woman

International Women’s Day always makes me feel staunch in my worldwide demands for women’s rights. I have been to my share of marches to demonstrate emotion and outrage. Instead of focusing on how much further we must go for equal rights. I will concentrate on one extraordinary woman. She has and still does positively impact my life and everyone who knows her.

Our Mum

Your love and time spent before marriage were your horses, and by all accounts, you excelled. Then came nursing, which was not easy for a shy country lass who was more comfortable surrounded by animals and the country air.

When you became a young wife and mother, the horses and nursing had to be put aside for a while. Still hard to understand why women had to give up their careers for motherhood.

You have indeed been a patient, loving, and caring Mum over the years unless a specific child pushed her luck, then the tables were turned, not usually to my advantage. As a young Mum, you were not that comfortable in a kitchen when the large vegetable garden and outside beckoned your endlessly busy hands; it was a thing that needed to be done. Feeding our hunger was always satisfied with homemade treats and dinners to take us through to another day. Some (one) of us tried for more when our eyes seemed bigger than our stomachs and were always stopped by a voice from the other room, “Get your hands out of the biscuit tin”. How do mothers always know when something is a miss?

Oh, remember those knitting and sewing events? I call them events as they were so memorable. You trying to get that machine knitted jumper over our heads, our ears felt like they were being disconnected from our heads, with a fling back into place for good measure. Those knitted jumpers kept us warm, with a suggestion that we could wear them to bed and bypass the ear distortion. Then there was the attempt at sewing; the result was a matching top and trousers in a paisley pattern and the material made of polyester for us girls. A seventies style I am pleased to never wear again.

You returned to work when your youngest child was in his early teens, which renewed your life energy; for a few hours, you weren’t a mother or a wife; you were a working woman called Noeline with so much to give to the broader community. You showed great empathy to the elderly you cared for, and I remember many thoughtful deeds you did for them in your time. Then there was golf, an outlet you and Dad enjoyed separately and as a couple.

Having Parkinson’s diagnosed at 60 years old never held you back for long, and you fought for your independence until it wasn’t physically possible. I will always admire your strength in dealing with this disease. Mentally as sharp as a tack, with a healthy sense of humour and fondly referred to as “Mrs Google”, when a family disagreement couldn’t be resolved, you would quietly go to your computer and find an answer. We waited with baited breath to see who was right. On most occasions, you were.

There are too many memorable events to cover here, where you have loved and supported us all; let’s say you did rather well to survive bringing up five children within seven years. We all still marvel at how you managed to do this. 

Today, you got to beat me at scrabble, tomorrow is another day, and it might include another game, a win for me.? She smiles.