Meet Nancy Larsen…Mom to me, Grandma to Kira, and Super Grandma to Kayva and MacKinley. My mom is my friend, my inspiration, my role model and quite possibly the most amazing lady I know.

I’d like to share her with you, so you too, can appreciate one of the most important people in my life.  My Mom is many things…

• Resilient
• Tough (I’m talking you don’t want to meet her in an alley tough)
• Sarcastic (Sometimes appropriately and…sometimes not)
• Stubborn
• Talented (The girl can bake her butt off and should probably open a bakery)
• Beautiful (Although she does not see it, everyone else does)
• Flexible (literally…she can do the splits)
• Silly (I have proof, lots of it…some even on video)
• School Cross-guard
• Fitness enthusiast and instructor
• Proud
• Loving
• Supportive
• And an overall BAD ASS

I have many memories of my mom, too many to share in one post,  but there are a few I feel, in no particular order, that  I must share with you.

In a previous post,  told you a little bit about my Mom and the commitment she made to me and my daughter when I got cancer… you can check that out here. When I was diagnosed with cancer, I remember my Mom asking the doctors if my getting was cancer because of something she did, something she ate while she was pregnant, something she fed me, something she could have prevented? No, the doctors told her, it was a mutated gene I had carried with me from birth, nothing hereditary nor preventable. It hurts me to think she, for even a second, thought she was responsible for such a horrible thing. Regardless of her fears, she handled my cancer like a champ. For example…

When my hair started to fall out from the chemo, my mom agreed to shave my head, even though I didn’t really want her to. I remember that day, she sat me on a chair in the middle of the kitchen and went to town with the clippers until it was all gone. She helped me put a bandana on my head as soon as she was done because I was too afraid to look in the mirror. She laughed with me as we made jokes about me looking like a pirate. She made it okay.

My Mom took me to my doctor’s appointments, sat with me through tests, waited for me after surgeries, held grocery bags for me as I puked in the car, and listened patiently as I complained about it all. There was one appointment that stands out. I think it was the 2nd biopsy I had on my kidney. I was especially irritated because I’d already had one biopsy done that didn’t work. SO, as I sat in the cold room in the pathetic hospital gown, I complained about everything. I was mad that it was cold, mad I had that stupid gown on, mad that the first biopsy wasn’t sufficient, mad because they were taking too long, literally just pissed at the whole process. As I ranted, my Mom sat in the chair, turning the pages of a magazine, not saying much, kind of ignoring me actually. My Mom knew that is exactly what I needed…someone to just sit with me, patiently, not trying to make it better but just there.

At one point I had my kidney removed which was one of the most excruciating, painful, miserable, horrible experiences ever. I’m talking so bad that when they told me I had to get out of bed to walk all I could do was cry and shake my head no. I was in the hospital for 5 days and as part of the healing process, I had to walk around the wing of the hospital. My Mom would walk with me as I slowly pushed my IV around on a pole… barely standing up straight and struggling to breath. As terrible as it was, it was on one of those walks that my Mom and I started laughing. I can’t even remember what it was, but we started joking about something and got laughing so hard that my Mom had to walk ahead of me so I could calm down enough to keep moving. I could see my mom ahead of me, silently shaking, tears in her eyes from trying not to laugh. The kind of laugh you only did when you knew you weren’t supposed to be laughing. These were the kind of things I needed to distract me from reality and, lucky for me, my Mom is frequently sarcastic and sometimes inappropriately funny.

Before I had cancer, before I was an adult, before I was a parent, back when I was just a little girl, my Mom was just as awesome. For example…

My Mom has the ability to make a really crappy situation strangely silly. I remember when I was really little we had so much dirty laundry that, rather than complain about it, my Mom made it a game.  We took that laundry, made a mountain out of it, strung it across the room, hung it from the light, basically decorated the room. My Mom taught us to be silly, to let go, take something you don’t want to do and turn it into a joke. This is a gift that has carried me through many difficult times.

My Mom filled my childhood with traditions… little things like filling my stocking every Christmas with plastic baggies full of goodies, closed with a twist tie or ribbon. Every year on my birthday I got to pick my cake and we had homemade vanilla ice-cream. Every Easter we woke up to our rock fire-place decorated in jelly beans and our baskets hidden somewhere in the house.  Sometimes Saturday mornings were special and we’d go to Taco Time after she taught her aerobics class. It doesn’t really matter what the tradition was but that we could always count on consistency.

And one of the most awesome things my Mom did when I was little was to role model a strong work ethic and a sense of resiliency. My Mom worked her butt off for me and my brother, doing whatever needed to be done, not asking for help from anyone, and never letting on to us that she was struggling. One of the things I appreciate the most about my Mom is that she protected us no matter what it cost her…as far as we knew, things were always okay.

In addition to all the wonderful things my Mom is to me, she is equally outstanding to others as well. My Mom has been the cross-guard at the neighborhood elementary school for somewhere in the ball-park of twenty plus years. I know for a fact that my Mom doesn’t know how important this job is and how many lives she’s touched throughout her career.  I hope that she will today. You see, my Mom stands outside twice a day, five days a week, for about 190 days a year, in ALL types of weather, helping the elementary school kids get to school safely, stopping the cars as they cross and maintaining order as they wait. I was recently contacted by my little sister’s 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Candace Miyake. Candace read my blog a few weeks ago and we connected on Facebook. She shared with me a story that brought me to tears, big tears, tears that flow as I’m typing now. My Mom was a volunteer in my sisters class the year I was diagnosed with cancer.  Candace wrote to me that…

“I’ll never forget the day when your mom came into my room to volunteer..and her heart was breaking. She had just learned that you had cancer…I want you to know I admire your mom so much. As a mother, she is second to none. As a crossing guard she is untouchable.”

Candace had more to say as we communicated back and forth. My Mom, and the rest of the world, need to hear what she shared with me…

“Your mother has SUCH an influence on everyone! My husband, Ken Miyake, retired 3 years ago. He takes me to school everyday and picks me up. He has watched your mom, tirelessly be the crossing guard through rain or shine….I’ve never seen ANYONE as dedicated as her. She makes a difference each and every day. Parents should be letting her know as well. It’s THEIR children she’s protecting. She’s a hero!“

Candace summed up my sentiments in three simple words…my Mom is a HERO and I want the world to know! Thank you for taking the time to get to know my mom…if you are friends with her on Facebook, give her a shout out,  if you see her in person, tell her she is awesome and give her a hug for me!

Tell me…who is your hero? Do you know anyone as amazing? What qualities MAKE someone a hero?

I’d love to hear from you!