As the Phoenix Does

The phoenix, in Greek mythology, is a bird that is regenerated or reborn. Associated with the sun, a phoenix obtains new life by rising from the ashes of the one before. Just as the phoenix rises up from ashes, Lucretia Donahue arose from her couch after a year of grieving the loss of her husband. She had decided to return to teaching. She had children to raise and to support. She could have chosen to marry again, but she never did. She would manage her life independently. Now, she needed to renew her teaching certificate. Now, it would take two years instead of the one she completed at the end of high school. She enrolled at the Albion Normal School, a place of continuing education which specifically trained people for the teaching profession and prepared those who would go on to other schools. It seemed lucky for her that when she was a teen, society had begun to see the value in training girls to have some means of supporting themselves, and teaching was one of the main options. She already had the experience and the confidence to step back into it.

By the time my mother was eight-years-old, my grandmother had obtained her new teaching certificate. She returned to the profession and taught fifth and sixth graders. She loved it! She especially liked the boys and was amused by their rowdiness. She was health conscious and would have her students get up from their desks and do "calisthenics to get their blood moving." Even when she was an old woman in her 80s and 90s, her past students, now adults in their 50s to 60s, would fondly address her. I remember wheeling my grandmother down the street one Fourth of July when a man came up to her, took her hand and said, "Hello, Mrs Donahue!" He told her she was the greatest teacher and she had made a good impact on him. He thanked her. It was clear she had been an important influence.

My mother, however, did not have such a good experience. She had my grandmother as her teacher. So as to not seem to be favoring her daughter, my grandmother was more strict and was harder on my mother. My mother hated being in her class. They had a prickly relationship in general. My mother felt deeply criticized by her mother. I didn't see it as I was growing up and couldn't understand my mother's tension. It wasn't until I was home later in life and the three of us went to a celebration in a downtown park that it became evident. My mother was pushing my grandmother in a wheel chair, which felt humiliating to my grandmother. I witnessed her sniping and barking at my mother with a harsh, critical tone for no good reason apparent to me. Then I felt empathy for my mother. I finally saw it and it was painful to see. It didn't make any sense. My mother needed her mother to be her support and in many ways she didn't get that. My mother clearly admired my grandmother's strength. But that strength that allowed her to persevere after her husband's death, for some reason, became harshness directed at her daughter. I wonder if it was some unconscious, twisted jealousy that didn't want to share that special man they both loved and who had loved each of them.