In the last year of my mother's life, she began shedding her personal possessions. With each visit, she would ask each of us if there was anything else we'd like to have; invariably I'd discover another treasure that held a special significance to me. A sensitive and not particularly welcome process this was, but it was important to both Mom and her children.
Rarely was it an item of material value that interested me. Now and then Mom would decide that a certain item should go to one of us. A hand-carved wooden box now sits on a shelf in my prayer and meditation corner. Her brother had carved this box some 75 years ago, and painted it with vibrant colours. The colours long since faded, it now houses handwritten slips of paper inscribed with the names of loved ones. I call it my prayer box.
One of my mother's most prized possessions, now hanging in our family room, is her high school equivalency certificate. It has a story to tell. Growing up during the depression in rural Nova Scotia, Mom attended one of those modest, one-room schoolhouses. While Mom visited Nova Scotia for the last time two years ago, we stopped in front of this old building, now a private residence. No doubt a flood of fond memories came back to her: "I was born with a great thirst for knowledge," she would often say. Within the walls of this building, her thirst was satiated. If I could transport myself back in time to a place of my choosing, I would enter that schoolhouse when my mother was studying there, and discover how and why the hours spent in this building were among the most satisfying in her life. I'd try to understand what has been lost in recent decades, and what we might try to resurrect, so that each child would be fired with the same love of learning that my mother always held.
At the age of 13, Mom was required to leave this school to tend to a terminally-ill mother and take over her mother's household tasks. She felt as if she had been robbed of her greatest treasures - her mother and her continuing education.
Many decades later, my mother found herself with an unexpected opportunity. General Educational Development testing became available within an easy drive across the American border, and my mother began preparing herself by taking an evening course at the local high school. The process took some 6 months and culminated in her writing her exams and passing with flying colours. It was, for her, a form of redemption. In her mind, she now triumphantly seized what had been denied her so long ago.
What Mom could never see in herself, and what was so obvious to everyone who knew her, was that she was very well educated, with or without this diploma. A voracious reader all her life, everyone knew she was a wealth of information. It did not matter the subject, I could ask Mom and she would have some idea of the answer or could point me in the right direction. Had the means been there, she would also have been a world traveler. Even so, she was able, with my father, to travel to Europe, Mexico and across Canada, soaking up the history and culture of each place she visited.
It's important for me to remember that my mother's education took place largely without formal schooling. This past week, Kira, our youngest daughter, has decided to continue her high school education outside of school. We have "homeschooled" in the past on two occasions, and in hindsight I can confidently assert that both occasions enriched and brought a unique perspective to our girls' lives that would not have been possible within the public school system. Education is an attitude, not a place, and my mother's life is a testimony to this fact.
The greatest challenge we anticipate is the reaction of others. Thankfully, we are well-versed in dealing with raised eyebrows, incomprehension, and even censorship. When we decided to hire midwives and birth our children at home, in an era when this approach was still very foreign to many, we acquired something of a thick skin. This thick skin has also served us well as adherents to a religion that is still relatively unknown. Learning how to appropriately respond to the reactions of others when we choose to follow "the road less traveled" is in itself a form of training. There is liberation to be had, as well, when we can free ourselves of the burden of concerning ourselves with what others might think.
When Mom wrote her GED exams, she was undoubtedly better educated, in the true sense of the word, than the people who tested her. To our family, the story told by her certificate is not of six months of preparation leading up to its acquisition. What it does represent, though, is the premium she placed on education. It serves to remind us that acquiring knowledge is both an attitude and an adventure of a lifetime. As long as her certificate hangs in our family room, it will continue to tell the story of a woman who saw every moment as an opportunity to learn: may it inspire all of us to do the same.
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