Lovely, sea-land Nova Scotia

(image credit: www.newspaperdesk.com)

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My beloved stepmom is a native of Nova Scotia. She grew up on a farm. Her father married her mother (a descendant of Commodore Perry) when he was 19, and she 35. For love, believe it or not.

Times weren't easy. It was the Depression, after all. But her parents made ends meet. Dad shot squirrels and groundhogs, and Mother made them palatable. Dad tended the orchard, and Mother earned cash by teaching piano lessons. (She was a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music.) My grandmother never turned a Depression tramp away, according to my stepmom. Despite having to do things like save, iron and re-use gift wrap, there was always something to give to someone down on their luck.

My stepmom earned her degree at Acadia University by waitressing at a resort in Maine. She owned exactly three dresses, three changes of underwear and one pair of shoes. (She washed her day's clothes every night in the sink in the dormitory where she and other wait staff lived.) Her first teaching job was also in Maine, in a one-room schoolhouse.

My stepmom took the painful step of getting a divorce from her first husband. Thereafter, she decided that what she and her two children needed was exposure to the wider world. And so she took a job teaching American children in schools in the Panama Canal Zone. (Which is where she met my Dad.)

Dad had to seriously court her. Not no way, not no how, would she EVER sleep with a man before marriage. And Dad never even hinted that she should. He loved her as much for that as for anything else. And he wooed her.

It can't have been easy. My Dad's wife left him with four kids to handle. (I was 3 years old.) My stepmom knew what that portended, and she was right. The older three were teenagers, resentful of her, willing to undermine her and hurt her. And they did. (And I was just as bad -- at 3, I was scared of her. She's assertive, and has a temper. I hid from her.) Still, she persevered. She loved my Dad. She loved us, in spite of ourselves.

She bit the bullet, and married my Dad. A month later, he was shipped off to Vietnam, for an entire year.

During this time, she had to undergo emergency surgery for female plumbing problems. Who helped her? Not us kids. My oldest brother actually pulled a gun on her, in his adolescent anger. Not her family, far away in Nova Scotia, and not able to afford a visit. No one helped her.

But she didn't cave. Nor whine, nor complain.

In subsequent years, she taught school, alongside my Dad and his career, to make sure the blended six of us had what we needed. She wore herself out. Today, she suffers from a lot of health problems, and no day goes by I don't worry about her.

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I have been a Canada-phile for a long time, because of my stepmom. Is my stepmom a typical Nova Scotian? A typical Canadian?

If so, it needs to be bottled up and sold.

I made many visits to Nova Scotia as a child. Her uncle had a farm, where he raised dairy cows -- and had a 9-hole golf course as pretty as anyone could wish. I have so many memories of how unique and lovely Nova Scotia is.

And I love you, my beautiful stepmom, more than words can say.