Today would have been her 89th birthday. She remains the model of grit, love, and positivity. Doris Anne lost her father at four, was raised by her schoolteacher mother, but loved life. She saved her money to buy books and read voraciously. She was short but loved basketball. She laughed easily.
Her father had signed up for WWII, knew it was coming, but died before he could serve. Her two uncles served in Europe, but never spoke about it. In time, Doris Anne became a teacher herself.
Her sister, two years younger, also became a teacher. Doris Anne taught in Monmouth, Maine, a mostly quiet spot. She must have lifted a thousand lives teaching remedial reading and art. If you circulate in that neck of the woods, you will find people who “go on” about her impact on their lives.
These days, in a world of complaints and self-focus, easy vilification and constant vanity, when people are quick to criticize, take offense, grumble, growl, and worse, she would be a light.
Her light never dimmed, even with two hard divorces, health problems, and losses. Her default was to laugh, to paint, to love animals, especially birds, and to find joy in each day. That was her way.
You could not offend her – not that anyone would want to – because she would see the silver lining, shrug, smile, laugh. She would feel truly sorry for you, try to cheer you, offer happiness of heart.
Praying came easily to her, stories of their impact, how good people really are, and in that way, reminded you how good she was; her smile travelled faster and further than dawn light. If you were worried, ailing, anxious, or in a pinch, she had your back, noting, “It’s not the end of the world.”
When her husband fell ill, she became his caregiver – for three long years, offering humor, labor, mirth and music, a different kind of light – the sort that grows in adversity, a deep faith made stronger. She would laugh often as ever, true and real as youth, somehow even in adversity.
She asked little, was grateful for everything, grateful for a daughter, much like her, who lived modestly in rural Maine; the two spoke every night at 8 pm, constantly laughed, always laughed. She would thrill when one of her sons planted flowers about her little home; another raked leaves.
She was always surprised when people stopped by. She would quickly serve food and coffee, never aware that they were there to check on their favorite source of love and light, come what might.
When her husband finally went home, his only regret in leaving was how much he would miss her. She comforted him confidently, lovingly, and with her irrepressible cheer, noting she would be along soon, and they were now headed to a place of such love and light he could hardly imagine.
Over the course of her life, she aimed each day to lift others, sent cards and cookies, visited those in need, consoled the hopeless until they smiled, fortified the timid until they dared, and showed life was about doing and helping, not stalling or complaining. Time was precious, so she gave it away.
Having written eleven children’s books, she dared to write one more in her last years, about how to be a cheerful caregiver, what those years are like, how to keep your sanity, enrich your faith, laugh when you want to cry, rise when you want to rest, and love that time as much as you labor in it. Her book, which still sells, is “Heavenly Music, Light, and Fragrance: One Man’s Journey to Heaven.”
So, here is the point. There are those who have lived before us, who live around us now, who teach us how to thrive in every season. She was one. Her name was Doris Anne Holman. Filled with laughter, giving, and living, today would be her birthday. She was like no other. She was my mother.
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What does this stir in you?