On my bike ride, I had many things go through my mind when it came to my mom. Mostly I thought about how throughout her life she battled obesity just like me. In fact, we spent decades fighting together with one diet or another. When I was 13, we did Weight Watchers together. This was long before the days of points and more moderation. Weight Watchers was strict. We were required to eat one liver meal a week. I can remember her purchasing chicken livers and drowning them in spaghetti sauce and saying over and over,"these taste like garden dirt", yet we choked it down praying for some
sort of magical power they supposedly held. Somehow we could not deviate from this formula set in front of us. We had the horrible frozen cod meals, as we were required fish several times a week, and learned to make our own ketchup. Ultimately this failed. When the food could no longer be choked back and somehow watered down tomatoes called,"ketchup" lost its appeal.
Later, Weight Watchers got an overhaul and we went back. This time we were serious. We would go to the meetings and get this done. Well, that is until my fairly independent and outspoken mother challenged the leader. My mom had gained two pounds that week. The leader was concerned and compassionate. She wanted to address what stumbling blocks my mom had. She asked her what happened. In true mom style my mom answered,"I cheated". When asked why, her answer? "I chose to cheat. I wanted to eat and I did". She was matter of fact. That leader never stood a chance.
Later, we would do optifast. Six shakes a day. I lost 50 pounds during a summer home from
college. She lost over 100. By this time Oprah had joined the craze and we got to see her roll her wagon of fat out on stage, a visual representation of her weight loss. Well, there was the fine print. You have to eat at some point. We ate again. We gained.
Then came Phen/fen, because clearly amphetamines are a reasonable weight loss tool. I mean look at the meth addicts. They are nice and thin. My mitral valve reminds me with an awesome murmur that this may not have been the answer. We did Jenny Craig, which my mom, to her dying day swears they put something mystical in the food that allowed her to lose weight. The regular food when we transitioned back did not have that "secret ingredient".
Later we would both have weight loss surgery. We would both lose weight. A decade later we would both put some back on, not all. She would go on to have some side effects of the surgery 14 years later that ultimately took her life on Friday.
My bike ride took me to Bowman Beach, our favorite beach. I sat there on the sand covered in sweat realizing she got to see me get healthy. She believed in me even though at the end of the day she did not believe in her own ability to be healthy. Hell, I suffered from the same belief for 45 years, constantly looking for the ever elusive weight or clothing size at the bottom of shaker bottles, prescription bottles and multiple externally controlled diet plans. Somehow for me, the combination of a 16 mile bike ride, with time on our favorite beach was the perfect marriage of the celebration of my health with her cheering me on through every mile as she knew I figured out that success was free, a lifestyle, and existed between my own two ears, with the enjoyment of one of her favorite places on earth.
As the storm clouds rolled in, as they often do in southwest Florida in July in the late afternoon, I decided it was time to head back. Through that ride I put on Ed Sheeran's,"Divide" album. Part way back the song "Supermarket Flowers" came on. It speaks of the death of his own mother. "A heart that's been broken is a heart that's been loved." Through our battles for health my mama loved me a lot which explains my own hurting heart in this moment. However, as Ed so eloquently puts it,"when God takes you back He'll say hallelujah you're home". Welcome home mama. Welcome home
