My Feisty, Opinionated Mom Would Have Been 88 Today

Print this entry

My mom would have been 88 today. Mary Grace Adrian Bourque Borders was born on January 26, 1930 in Boston, and grew up in Concord, N.H. She studied in Boston at Massachusetts General Hospital and became a registered nurse. Mom met our dad in Boston, when his naval destroyer, the U.S.S. Norris was docked at the shipyard for repairs. They married in 1953. After my dad left the Navy, they moved back to N.H. and bought a small house in Allenstown, N.H., about five miles from Concord.

Everyone called her Mickey, a nickname she acquired in nursing school, though she was always vague on the details. She was short, about five-foot-two, with dark brown hair and eyes. She was feisty, opinionated and had a temper. She was also very intelligent, read voraciously, loved the Red Sox and New England Patriots, and was the most color-blind person I have known.

One of my earliest memories is realizing that I was a separate person from my mom. I was playing outside with toy trucks, and she asked me if I wanted to go to the store with her. I told her no, I wanted to keep playing. She seemed sad but left me to my trucks, as my dad drew in the converted barn that served as his studio. Somewhere in my 3-year-old brain I realized I was uniquely me, able to make decisions apart from my mother.

My mom worked as a nurse in Concord Hospital until I was born there, then stayed home with me. Scott arrived two-and-half years later. Gregg was a late arrival, doubtless a surprise, popping up nearly nine years after I was born. My dad supported us as a commercial artist, but it was a modest living. My parents talked often into the night about moving south or west, where the economy was better than New England at the time. A door-to-door salesman sold them a lot in Toltec, Arizona, a failed housing development south of Phoenix. To my knowledge, they never visited it.

Instead, after years of discussion, we moved to Longview in June 1968, to live with my paternal grandfather, who was a Boy Scout executive there. My dad soon found a job as a sign painter and they bought a ranch house on South Twelfth Street. With three bedrooms, two baths, and a carport my maternal grandfather came down and converted into a studio, it seemed as if we had firmly arrived in the middle class.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but my mother despised East Texas. She missed her family, abhorred the heat, hated “y’all” and avidly rooted against the Dallas Cowboys — indeed, all things Texan. On the other hand, I was thrilled to be here, despite the culture shock. And the summers took getting used to, feet sinking into the mushy oil-topped surface of Twelfth Street as a I walked down to the corner store. But I quickly gained friends and relished living in a much-larger town.

Mom, on the other hand, returned to N.H. at least once or twice a year, especially when finances improved. We had a rocky relationship in high school, not unusual in the teen years. As the oldest, I got the most flak, and my reaction was to become independent at a young age. While I always stayed close to my dad, mom and I had long periods throughout my 20s of rarely communicating. Our relationship improved with the arrival of grandchildren.

Life changed considerably 11 years ago, when I realized both my parents were unable to live on their own. My dad had been disabled by then for 17 years, the victim of a botched brain operation when he was only 59. My mother became his caretaker, and that is when she became a hero in my eyes. She rarely complained, handled finances, his frequent doctor visits, medication — the whole nine yards. Brother Scott would come up and relieve her for a week or so at least once a year so she could go to N.H. and catch a break.

But it caught up with her. She began showing signs of dementia, her diabetes and heart condition worsened, and I was forced to place them in assisted living, take over their finances, sell their house and, with my brothers, dispose of most of their possessions. Their medical needs were simply too great for me to handle and work as well.

Both adapted well, happily. Dad passed away from his lengthy list of maladies in 2009, after two years. Mom lived another two years, generally cheerful and easy to please. We went to lunch once a week, took drives around first Lufkin, then Longview. In May 2011, congestive heart failure finally caught up with her, and she passed at 81.

In those last years, Mom was fond of reciting the old saw, “Old age is not for the timid.” She faced her many maladies without complaining, and treated everyone kindly. Mom indeed mellowed in her last years. And our relationship did as well.

Happy Birthday, Mom. I miss you.

Print this entry