As elder law attorneys we often meet with the adult children of elderly parents and quite often during the conference the children will reminisce. They may talk about what their mother or father did that made them special. As I sit and listen to their family stories, I think of my dear late mother who, because she raised us six children as a single mother, had to be both a mother and a father.

“Ma” showed us what kind of mother she would be right from the start, when shortly after I, her fourth child, was born in our father’s hometown of Farmerville, Louisiana, she, believing she could make a better life for us children back here in Maine, packed us up, put together as much money as she could and, without obtaining spousal approval, hitched a ride to the train station 35 miles away. With two children on her lap and two children in the seat beside her, she then began to make her way north to Maine, only to be put off the train in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she had run out of ticket and run out of money.

After waiting at the train station all day and all night, her brother was able to come to the train station, feed us, and give her enough money to get us back to Maine, where we settled, at first in Bangor. After our father had rejoined us and we lived there for several years, we were burnt out of our apartment by an accidental fire. Again believing that she could make a better life for us, Ma packed us up and, again without obtaining spousal approval, moved us to Waterville, where she began the most challenging task of raising six children — on her own, and on welfare. That means that when the parish priest sends a note home asking where the husband and the school dues are, she was the one who had to explain that she had neither.

And when the school principal called to say that perhaps one of her boys was not cut out for the college preparatory course, she was the one who had to take the call and say, “No, you’re not going to tell my son he can’t go to college.”

And when the local police came knocking at the door because one of her boys had maybe stepped a little too far out of line, she was the one who had to answer the door and beg for forgiveness.

And when the state welfare people came to do their annual inspection and interrogation, she was the one who was on trial defending herself.

And when the refrigerator was empty and the cupboard was bare, she was the only one there. She was the one who always slept on the couch. She was the one who never bought anything new for herself. She was the one who always went without.

Our mother was not a particularly well-educated person. So she was not a doctor, although she helped nurse many a sick child and grandchild back to good health. And she was not a lawyer, although she helped settle many an argument and knew how to advocate for the people and principles she believed in. And she was not a successful businessperson who accumulated a lot of wealth and real estate, although she always had what she needed — her family, her friends, her God.

She did not have the time or the talent to sit and teach us our reading, our writing and our arithmetic, but she did teach us.

When it came time to teach us not to fight with other children on the school playground or at the Boys Club, she would tell us “it takes a man to walk away from a fight.” And if you stood there and insisted that you were right because the other boy had started it, she would remind you that “two wrongs never, ever, make a right.”

And when she wanted to teach us the value of education, she would stand in front of us and pull on her waistband, telling us that we “had to get that education under your belt” because once we did it would open doors for us — it was something that nobody could ever take away.

And when it came time to teach us to be fair and honest in our dealings with others, she would tell us that we only had one reputation and if we ever lost it we could never get it back.

And when it came time to teach us to be kind and understanding of those less fortunate, she would say the Arabic word, “Haddom.” “Haddom on that poor soul,” she would say. “Have mercy on that poor soul,” she would say.

Our dear mother passed away in 2008 at age 92. There were times she would tell us, “You’re gonna miss this ol’ chicken when she’s gone.” Well, as usual, she was right, we do miss her dearly. But like the adult children who visit us for help with their aging parents, we have fond memories of her — as a mother and as a “father.”

John E. Nale lives in Waterville.

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