{"id":5218,"date":"2023-02-22T15:03:41","date_gmt":"2023-02-22T21:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/julijasukys.com\/?p=5218"},"modified":"2023-02-23T10:12:36","modified_gmt":"2023-02-23T16:12:36","slug":"eulogy-for-vida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/julijasukys.com\/?p=5218","title":{"rendered":"Eulogy for Vida"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
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Vida as a girl, with a baby cousin.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n

Delivered on December 12, 2022, in Toronto. By Julija \u0160ukys.<\/em><\/p>\r\n

What I know about survival, courage, and joy, I learned from my mother. Vida taught us, her children, that life is adaptation, that peace comes through the acceptance of change, and that it takes courage to live with joy.

She would chuckle when I pretended to be stern and told her to \u201cassume the position,\u201d so I could get her dinner tray in place, strap it to the arms of her wheelchair, and settle in with her for a Sunday night murder mystery on TV. She would laugh as a boyfriend and I struggled to get her up off the floor after she\u2019d toppled over onto her bedroom carpet. And even after dementia had settled in and she\u2019d pretty much stopped talking, I could still make her giggle by giving her a series of loud kisses on her cheek.

Our mother\u2019s diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis came more than 40 years ago, when I was about 4 and my brother, Paul, about 6. It started one day at work, my mother told me. A high school science teacher, Vida was eating lunch in the staff room when half her face suddenly went numb. Many MS patients tell horror stories of years of tests and misdiagnoses, but Vida was the exception. Her diagnosis came quickly and without delay. \u201cWhen they told me what it was,\u201d she said, \u201cI thought, well, at least it doesn\u2019t kill you.\u201d

About eight years ago, I interviewed my mother about her life and her illness. We talked in the library of her nursing home. \u201cThe facial numbness disappeared after a while,\u201d I hear her say on the tape I made that day. She goes on to describe other effects that emerged over the years: double vision, fatigue, imbalance, and unresponsive limbs.

Near the end of our recorded conversation, Vida finally lands on the thing she told Paul and me for years. Call it a mantra of sorts: \u201cI had this philosophy that I wouldn\u2019t dwell on what I\u2019d lost, but I\u2019d look at what I could still do and expand on it with multiple aids. And then,\u201d my mother concludes, \u201cif I did that, I was a winner.\u201d

Vida was so good at making the adjustments that MS required of her that, in my view, her defining characteristic wasn\u2019t her illness but rather her extraordinary response to it. \u201cThis is a class act,\u201d wrote the essayist Nancy Mairs, \u201cNo tears, no recriminations, no faintheartedness.\u201d Though I\u2019m pretty sure she had never read or even heard of Mairs, who also suffered from MS for decades, Vida unwittingly lived by her words.

Sitting vigil with my mother in her final weeks has been one of the great honors, joys, and sorrows of my life. Each day when I arrived, I would give her noisy kisses, rub her legs, and hold her hands. Each day, I would say over and over again, \u201cHi Mama. I\u2019m here. I love you.\u201d I must have said it a thousand times.

In the days since her death, I\u2019ve felt like a planet knocked out of its orbit. And I\u2019ve marveled at a new realization: That despite her illness, Vida was like the sun around which my brother and I revolved. She was at the center of everything; the magnet that pulled me back to Toronto at every opportunity. Somehow, although her body and even her voice no longer worked, she still managed to be the strongest force in our lives. I feel a bit lost without her. I have no doubt that Paul does too.

But our mother taught us well. She passed on lessons about self-transformation and survival, so we will adjust. We will take care of each other now.

Mama, we\u2019re here. We love you.

Go to your ancestors and walk with them again. They\u2019re waiting for you, I\u2019m sure.


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