Posted at 16:43h
in
1930's,
Canada
One of my earliest memories of my mother is how she would put in my contact lens (named “Mike”) every morning when I was three years old. How I would endlessly tell her, “I think I lost Mike,” whereupon she would search my eye and say, “look up, look down” until my eye would begin to water and she would say, “Don’t worry, it’s okay, Mike’s just taking abath”. I would continuously lose Mike; my mother would continuously search. And inevitably she would find Mike.
When she was a young girl, my mother, Phyllis Kathleen Vine dreamed of becoming a dancer. In rare moments my normally reserved mother would extend her arms and pose in the most graceful of ways. Whenever she did this, I couldn't help but smile, picturing her as a young girl in the exact same pose. Being one of a large family, this never happened for her. 
Two years ago, my brother, two sisters, my husband and myself were all retired. None of us have nine to five jobs. We all acknowledge this with smug self satisfied little smiles and self congratulatory glints in our half shut eyes. In this same year, my 85 year old mother, was laid off from her job. She is a legal secretary. Her boss turned 91 and felt that he only needed one of his two employees, as work is not as abundant as he hoped. My mom was devastated.
Multipe sclerosis is a neurological disease that attacks the nerves. Now considered one of the autoimmune diseases, there haven’t been any major advances or cures in the six years since Mummy died in 1998 at age 78. Even before that it was considered a mystery. Doctors agree however that people with MS should try to reduce the stress in their lives as much as possible.
