. . .in conversations with Mom after her stroke. Next, she welcomed international students to Lafayette.

I was scratching my head thinking about what to blog about when one of my friends said, “You should write about your mom!”

Mom was rather amazing in a hometown sort of way. She taught school briefly after the last of us got into first grade. Her stint as an in-school reading teacher didn’t last long. That first year, Mom had a migraine headache coming in from the playground with her students. She fell before making it inside the door, and it took EMS eight minutes to revive her.

Her doctor ran tests at Home Hospital and found a blood clot had burst in her brain. Later the following day, the surgeon went into the right side of her brain to repair the damage. Following a brain swell after surgery, she could no longer move her left arm or leg when she awoke. This situation changed little after months of therapy.

This may sound like a sad story, but it wasn’t. Despite mom’s impairment, she made the best of it. In church, offering a greeting, her right-handed squeeze made a 6-foot-tall construction worker wince; the strength of her grip could have won an arm-wresting contest.

In the mid-1970s, when this took place, little research was available to guide doctors and patients about stroke recovery. Together we discovered that she saw in vertical stripes—seeing and not seeing from right to left. Mom learned to turn her head to gather all the words in a sentence when she scanned a page. As a reading teacher, novels and short stories were vital to her happiness. She gathered a stack of books by the couch to read before the library came to trade her load of books for a new batch. Mom knew what was happening in town and across the world because she read the Lafayette newspaper, listened to National Public Radio, and watched Walter Cronkite every night.

Mom also listened on the radio to her Indiana Hoosiers basketball team, especially Isiah Thomas. Yes, years later, Thomas moved on to a professional career. Still, when Indiana won the national championship in 1981, Marion, an Indiana graduate, sat glued to the television.

Remembering recipes with more than three steps to them proved to be too challenging, but her muscle memory helped her get back to tutoring young children having difficulty with reading. Mom had no problem with her speech, which was a blessing that helped her reach out to children. I remember a particular guy, maybe eight, who had become a bit of a problem in the classroom because being unable to read took away his confidence and returned a belligerent, not very happy student. There was something about mom and struggling students. This guy, I’ll call him Tommy, may have seen Mother walk back from the door with a walker and understood life provided challenges for her. He saw her as a kindred spirit, not someone to be mocked or pitied.

They talked, and Mom, with nothing but time, listened. Tommy told her all about his favorite baseball team, the Cubs, quoting scores and the names of his favorite players. Mom’s eyes lit up because she listened to the Cubs baseball games, too, since it was Dad’s favorite team. They made a connection, and Mom ordered books about baseball for Tommy. Since he desperately wanted to know more about baseball, he had a reason to sound out the words on the page because they were about BASEBALL, his favorite thing. Funny, it wasn’t long before Tommy liked reading because he could learn more about baseball players! Soon several boys who were into sports cars, football, and baseball came along and had experiences similar to Tommy’s.

A bit later, Mom noticed a news article asking for volunteers to help international students at Purdue University feel more at home in Lafayette. She called and explained she would not be able to come to campus but would welcome students to her home for discussions.

Not long after, students from Japan, China, Mexico, and South America made the trip to Lafayette’s east side, some taking three busses, to chat with Mom. She had no English as a Second Language training but offered a willingness to answer questions on any topic. Her age endeared her to many of the students, who respected her as an elder, like those they left behind. The students soon realized they could indeed ask her anything, including things they were too embarrassed to ask their roommate. They ask about the many English words that have dual meanings, like “hear” and “here.” Some at the time were really interested to know more about football, which has always been part of student life at Purdue. Mom could easily help out. Her Dad played football with Knute Rockne at Notre Dame, of course, long before any of these students would have known. The game had not changed all that much, except maybe for weight rooms, fancier locker rooms, and probably more meat on the training tables.

My protective father asked Mom one Saturday, “Do you think I should be here when these students arrive?” My mom glanced over and gave him a strong Mom Look that said, “I got this, thank you.”