THINGS THAT MATTER: Remembering an Amazing Mother
“No man is poor who has a Godly mother.” (Abraham Lincoln)
“Behind all your stories is always your mother’s story. Because hers is where yours begins.” (“http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2331.Mitch_Albom” Mitch Albom, in http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/3125926 “For One More Day”.)
Wednesday October 26 was the 22 anniversary of the departure of my mother, Lorraine Mitchinson Fraser (nee Watson) for greener pastures. She was a remarkable person in many ways, but she and our father believed her greatest work was her four children. Since Mothers’ Day is always accompanied by a plethora of stories and philosophies about motherhood, I thought this would be a good time for some reminiscences about this unsung hero, and to see some lessons she set and followed on parenting. She was our mother, our mentor, our teacher, our guide and until she passed, our virtual conscience. She taught us all to read at age four, and home schooled us until secondary school at 6,7,8 and 9 respectively. Our love of reading has been key to our lives.
She was number six in a sib-ship of twelve, born to a planter, but grand-daughter of a priest, niece of another priest, and named after Bishop Mitchinson. Life was Spartan, and as number six she was always dressed in “hand-me-downs”. She won many prizes at the Alexandra School, became head girl and played trophy-winning club tennis. She ran her own private primary school for four years, before a career in the post office, serving successively as postmistress of St. James, St. Peter and St. John. In the St. Peter post, in Speightstown, she had the heroic role for a while of supporting her mother and younger siblings on her slender salary, after her father died following a factory explosion.
She ended her career as one of, if not the first woman to head departments in the civil service in Bridgetown. She is remembered by hundreds of civil servants, and only this week I had the pleasure of meeting a wonderful old Lodge Boy, “Smiley” Alleyne, who reminded me that he started his career with her in the post office.
She had many skills. She was a consummate cook and baker, specialising in pastries and traditional Bajan sweets – fudge, sugar cakes, Turkish delight and shaddock rind. She was also a farmer on the side, with a carefully husbanded acre of fertile St. John land behind our home at Spooners. Our food security was provided by her sweet cassava, yams, potatoes, sorrel, bananas and every kind of vegetable. Each child had a garden bed assigned and I grew sweet peppers – my pride and joy!
She was a friend to all, and treated young and old, humble and wealthy from every corner of St. John, who came to our yard, with the same respect, courtesy and kindness. We grew up in an environment of happy, willing and caring service to the community. She and my father, in his job as Parochial Treasurer, both provided charity to scores of the poor on a regular basis – they simply responded with sincerity to every genuine need that they could find the means of helping. And my mother’s help to every customer led to many friendships, but none so precious as that of “Aunt” Helena Cadogan in New York, who became the fairy godmother to me that children dream of.
My mother’s philosophy was “The good you do comes back to you from unexpected sources.” She lived the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would like them to do unto you”, and by quoting this she trained us to be kind and courteous pro-actively, so that we faced few conflicts in childhood. Neither of our parents believed in corporal punishment; she taught us from earliest childhood the essentials of a good life – especially the absolute requirement of honesty and trust – we must be totally honest, so that she could trust us. She passed on the most humane and Christian principles of morality by example. The idea of disobeying her in any way was unthinkable – it would have induced what I call “Anglican guilt”, because we were raised as sincere Christians. Her passion for the hymns on Rediffusion was a reassuring source of comfort, presiding over our home every Sunday, and in service at St. John’s Parish Church – holy of Holies on this rock of ours!
Even after both her hips were replaced by orthopaedic surgeon and old Lodge alumnus Dr. Karl Massiah, in Toronto, at 72, she spent five or six years doing everything she could, continuing her life of service, giving everything she could – cakes, candies, friendship on visits to the older residents in the streets of Belleville, where she lived – walking with her cane and a package from 9th Avenue as far as 1st Avenue!
We found two hand-written quotations among her precious possessions after she passed, which express her life’s philosophy. The first is: “Money provides everything but Happiness, and is a passport to everywhere but Heaven.” And the other: “The foundation of every noble character is sincerity.” She lived these mottos, and knew the secret of happiness – service. Our friend the late Oscar Hogan, the brilliant son of “Aunt” Helena in New York, wrote this tribute, quoting Kipling:
“You forced your heart and mind and sinew, to serve their twin long after they were gone, And there was nothing left within you but the will that said to them: Hold on!”
She lived to serve, “in heart and mind and sinew,” and we her children and those she loved are forever grateful.
The lessons we can draw from her life are the eternal values for a rewarding life – values that are recognised universally but more honoured in the breach; values that are by far best manifested in a Godly home, with two caring parents, setting the example. And when I review the qualities she lived with, these values that I’ve mentioned provide us with a list of a critical dozen “healthy life habits”: Love, faith, morality, honesty, sincerity, service, respect, courtesy, kindness, curiosity, responsibility and READING! Can we try harder to imbue these values across our educational system and our society? Can we try?
Postscript: The extraordinary circus of the USA Presidential Election campaign is almost over. It occurred to me that not even the greatest playwright in the world, William Shakespeare, has every combined such comedy and tragedy in a single play. But sadly, this horrific and unprecedented election scenario of bluff, bullying, libel and hate could be emulated here at home, to our eternal detriment. Let us pray.
(Professor Fraser is past Dean of Medical Sciences, UWI and Professor Emeritus of Medicine. Website: profhenryfraser.com)