I Know A Very Courageous Person You Should Know About As Well.

Just to save you running to the dictionary, my interpretation of courageous is someone who knows all the risks and still sets out upon a course of action knowing the cost. Bravery, which is more my style, is grabbing a gun and running toward the sound of gunfire. Mind you, most brave people are somewhat courageous in that they’ve likely evaluated possible scenarios ahead of time, so the act of bravery is predicated on their courageous intent formed over time.

Was that too wordy?

So, the courageous person I want to talk about is my mom. I don’t know if courage is a genetic trait, but I lucked out in that both of my parents were either brave or courageous. I got the bravery part from my father. He didn’t take crap and stood his ground regardless of the consequences. Instead of a gun to gunfire, he was the type of guy who grabbed a golf club and joined the neighbor searching for a prowler at ten at night. But you get my point.

So, why is my mom courageous? She is in her mid-eighties, and she has made more major life changes in the last four months than some of you have in your entire lives. I am extraordinarily proud of her, and have tried to support her (versus cajole and sucker her into doing what I think is right) along the way.

She sold her home of over 20 years and moved into a senior community. It was a tough call, because for the first time since she got married in the 1950s she moved into a new residence without my father at her side. That’s landmark stuff there, folks. She also left behind the last traces of a life she came to Florida to form with my dad. Oh, sure, she has mementos, but she will never again glance across the room and picture him where he used to sit. The building she lives in is brand new, and relatively free of ghosts; including the friendly ones.

But perhaps the biggest change in some ways was her excellent judgement in surrendering her driver’s license. We talked about it for months, and she essentially parked her car when she moved and only drove it twice in a few months. About 1 mile roundtrip. 

You see, my mother, who has encouraged me in my pursuits all my life (except the cop thing, that scared her) has vision problems. And she realized that she was a bit of menace on the road with her eyesight fading. Some day she will probably be blind in at least one eye, but she’s in luck: she has a kid who will narrate the tough parts for her mind to envision. As a result of her realization, she agreed to surrender her driver’s license. 

Mind you, she did try to pass the eye test one last time, but she was doing that for assurance that she really couldn’t drive, not just shouldn’t. 

The loss of your license is to many a loss of freedom. Perhaps. But in the age of UBER it’s not as big a deal as it was 20 years ago. Still, what a tough thing to surrender.

Finally, she sold her beloved car so that she could avoid the temptation for any felonious automotive excursions. She loved that car, and had exactly what she wanted. Her previous ride was destroyed by a reckless driver a year ago, and so she got a clean slate. But after the accident the joy of driving was diminished even with a hot set of Honda wheels under her. 

And, to conclude the story,  CARVANA came to pick up the car last week. (I cannot say enough about them and how nice they were.)

 

So, I think my mom’s pretty courageous. 

And, because I would be wrong in putting it any other way, my sister Jean is pretty courageous as well. She was right there alongside me as I worked with my mom to get this done. She helped my mom way more than I did when it came to getting her moved, and she supported the surrender of her license. More importantly, she did all the heavy lifting finding the best price for the car, and making all the arrangements with CARVANA.  I just kind of stood to the side and watched. That’s not easy to do when it’s your mom, as you have a lot to lose if mom doesn’t like what you’re doing. 

 

So, THANK YOU, JEAN for all your hard work.

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I Know A Very Courageous Person You Should Know About As Well. — 1 Comment

  1. Courageous and brave. As we see our once-easy skills going by the wayside to put it mildly and to come to terms with the aging process we resent and fight until whatever weapons we thought we were using also break down, it takes a very brave and courageous person to do exactly what your brave mom did. God bless her and keep her content for as long as He leaves her here to bless her family.