An Ode To My Mother On The Day That She Died

My mother died this morning — September 16, 2024. But this is not a story about her death. Instead, I want to tell you some things about her life.

She was born on April 26, 1960 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Though she immigrated to Canada as a child, the land of her birth always remained a source of pride for her. Love of country coursed through her veins like oxygen, and she would often share about Scotland with a fondness that made me feel lucky to have my roots there, too.

The national emblem of her homeland since the 13^th century is the thistle. There's a legend that attributes it to the Battle of Largs which chronicles a Norse army who had traveled to Scotland, intent on capturing it. Planning to ambush the sleeping clansmen, the Norsemen left their ships under the cover of night and removed their shoes so as not to make a sound. However, one of the men stepped on a thorny thistle as he crept across the countryside, and the yelp of pain that escaped his mouth was so loud that it woke up the clansmen, who successfully defended themselves and their land with honor.

While a legend like this is certainly good for a laugh, should you ask a Scot why the thistle is the national flower, they'd likely tell you it's because it represents the people. The pearl-bordered fritillary, one of the country's most beautiful butterflies, feeds upon the nectar of the thistle as a means of its survival, and the flower graciously welcomes them with its open leaves. Equally as welcoming and kind are the people of Scotland — but don't mistake their kindness for weakness! The thistle, like a Scot, is also tough and ever-resilient; it's had to be, in order to adapt to the constantly changing climate of the country. And finally, the thistle is a proud flower, much like the people who call its nation home. The thistle stands five feet tall, regal and elegant with a stunning purple crown that seems akin to royalty. They truly are a sight to behold.

What I find interesting, however, is that the thistle is one of a small number of plants with no natural enemies, thanks to the prickly spines that cover it like a porcupine. What's more, the thistle also grows bristled leaves as an added layer of defense, protecting itself from being eaten by wildlife. It's almost as if the thistle's biological makeup is one born of its innate desire — nay, necessity — to survive.

And this is what makes me think of my mother. It is no surprise to anyone who knew her that hers was a difficult life. Some of her struggles were natural consequences of her own choices, but some were not. In these ways, she was a victim of a cold, cruel world that doesn't think twice about chewing someone up and spitting them out, and that is what happened to her. So, what did she do? Like the thistle, she grew spikes and spines, adding more and more over the years as a means to protect herself, as a means to make it through the best she could. 

My mother was a fighter, even until the very end. There are times in my life I felt like she was fighting for the wrong thing, but that doesn't detract from the hearty — and hardy — grit that she gave me. Even when it was out of necessity, I learned from her how to keep going, and that is a gift I am eternally thankful for.

Recently, as she declined (particularly in this last year), I've been thinking about matrilineage, how there seems to be a scarlet thread of struggle that weaves itself throughout complicated mother-daughter relationships of the women in our family. These days, as the chasm seems to daily widen between myself and my own daughter, I cannot help but wonder: did she give me this, too? Did her mother give it to her, or hers to her? Where does it start, and where will it end, or is a tangled maternal ancestry destined to be the proverbial thorn in we women's sides?

These questions, I know, do not have easy answers. Perhaps no answers at all. For this reason, I find it delightfully ironic that the thistle — such an unexpectedly sharp beauty — also happens to have potent medicinal properties in natural medicine. For thousands of years, relief from a variety of problems (liver, kidney, and gallbladder issues in particular) has been found in the healing properties of milk thistle. The night I found this out, I dreamed of my mother pregnant, belly stretched and breasts engorged with her milk, and I awoke with a strange thought echoing within me: Sometimes the pain is what feeds us.

I wrote in my book of a great thing I learned once about mother ducks, how they are known to pluck their feathers from their very own breasts as a way to line the nests of their young. For so long, I was blind to all the feathers my mother had sacrificed for me, for her other children. I only saw the scars; I hadn’t known how to look at them as love.

I see it now.

And so, as I grapple with losing this woman who both birthed me and broke me, hurt me and healed me, I find a strange, sad comfort in the thistle, national symbol of my mother's beloved Scotland. She's not my homeland anymore, but she will always be the first place I called home, much like she and her birth country.

And I hold on to this: yet another testament of the thistle's strength comes from its bullheaded, stubborn determination. A gardener, for example, may desire to remove the plant's roots from the ground to try and avoid the land becoming overrun with them. But the thistle, it holds on. It digs in its nails and fights like hell to remain, so much that a gardener will find it nearly impossible to completely eradicate the plant. Even a little bit of root left in the ground will grow thistle in glorious full-force again the following year.

My mother fought her fight, and though she is no longer here, I am. May her soul find eternal rest knowing that her name, her life, and her legacy lives on in me, against all odds. 

They tried to bury us, Mom. But they didn't know we were seeds.

Gu bràth.