Though I was the youngest, I was by far the healthiest.  Consequently, I had to pretty much raise myself while my single mother struggled to earn a living in rural western Canada.  This circumstance probably reinforced my constitutional predilection for independent thought and action.  Early on I started to protect my “little” brother, making sure the local bullies didn’t take advantage of him.  I learned to fight big boys and win.  I also helped him acquire simple skills, ones that most kids grasp without difficulty, such as swimming, bike riding, tree climbing, etc.

And though not yet adolescent, I had to function as a responsible adult in our household.  Stressed by anger over her situation and the difficulties of earning our living as a country school teacher (usually in remote one-room schools), my mother’s health deteriorated rapidly.  As she steadily lost energy and became less able to take care of the home, I took over more and more of the cleaning, cooking, and learned how to manage her—­a person who feels terrible but must work to survive.

During school hours my mother was able to present a positive attitude, and was truly a gifted teacher.  However, she had a personality quirk.  She obstinately preferred to help the most able students become even more able, but she had little desire to help those with marginal mentalities.  This predilection got her into no end of trouble with local school boards; inevitably it seemed the District Chairman would have a stupid, badly-behaved child that my mother refused to cater to.  Several times we had to move in the middle of the school year when she was dismissed without notice for “insubordination.”  This would inevitably happen on the frigid Canadian Prairies during mid-winter.

At night, exhausted by the day’s efforts, my mother’s positiveness dissipated and she allowed her mind to drift into negative thoughts, complaining endlessly about my irresponsible father and about how much she disliked him for treating her so badly.  These emotions and their irresponsible expression were very difficult for me to deal with as a child, but it taught me to work on diverting someone’s negative thoughts, and to avoid getting dragged into them myself, skills I had to use continually much later on when I began to manage mentally and physically ill clients on a residential basis.

My own personal health problems had their genesis long before my own birth.  Our diet was awful, with very little fresh fruit or vegetables.  We normally had canned, evaporated milk, though there were a few rare times when raw milk and free-range fertile farm eggs were available from neighbors.  Most of my foods were heavily salted or sugared, and we ate a great deal of fat in the form of lard.  My mother had little money but she had no idea that some of the most nutritious foods are also the least expensive.

It is no surprise to me that considering her nutrient-poor, fat-laden diet and stressful life, my mother eventually developed severe gall bladder problems.  Her degeneration caused progressively more and more severe pain until she had a cholecystectomy.  The gallbladder’s profound deterioration had damaged her liver as well, seeming to her surgeon to require the removal of half her liver.  After this surgical insult she had to stop working and never regained her health.  Fortunately, by this time all her children were independent.