Happy Birthday, Mariette!
My mom would have turned 95 today...
Mariette J. Vigeant, née Bolduc — b. June 27, 1930, d. December 12, 2012
It’s funny that my last newsletter was about my Dad. Today, it’s about my Mom. She would have turned 95 today and it wouldn’t be far fetched to imagine that, had she been in good health for the ten years prior to her death, she might have made it to this day sharp minded, deeply committed to making a better world for her family and community, and eternally curious—as she was her whole life. After all, her mother lived to be over 93, and her life was not an easy one— Marie Rose lived through two world wars, the Spanish Flu pandemic, the Great Depression and the heartbreaking death of stomach cancer of her youngest daughter, Lena, at the age of 28, and, two years later, the death of her granddaughter, my sister Danielle of a fire accident, age 6. These things take a toll of the body as well as the soul.
In the year before my Dad died my mother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. During the following ten years, while she fought the Parkinson’s with everything she could muster, she had some TIAs, and at one point suffered a debilitating stroke. I could go on about how those last two years were for all of us but I think I’d rather celebrate her life. I’m glad, in a way, that she isn’t around to see what’s going on today.
She was a special education teacher, and a contributor to the creation of Chapter 766, the Massachusetts Public Education law that “guarantees a ‘free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment’ to all school-aged children (ages 3 to 21) regardless of disability.”1 She led a group of parents to create and incorporate Greater Marlboro Programs, a support and services organization for children with special needs and their families.2 Thanks to her hard work for the community of special needs children, my sister, Camille, was able to go to school, have a job, live in her own apartment and have a fulfilling life, one she now enjoys in Port Townsend with two other sisters.
Mariette was also a gardener, an avid sailor and nature lover, and someone unafraid to take six kids (and sometimes their friends) camping for weeks in all sorts of places from Quebec to Virginia, but mostly in Brewster on Cape Cod. Oh sure, my Dad was there too, but I’m pretty sure he spent most of his time setting up the camp and carving walking sticks with our names on them. Not all of my sisters will remember these trips because the youngest were perhaps too young to know just where we were, but I remember camping on Long Island for the 1965 World’s Fair, camping near my grandmother’s family for the Montreal 1967 Expo, and a trip to Virginia where my mother captured a wolf spider in a mayonnaise jar (with holes in the cover). We watched all the baby spiders she carried around on her belly crawl around in the jar. I don’t think I slept very well that night. I do remember hiking up Mount Monadnock with my youngest sister, Nicki, literally in tow, tethered to my Dad by a rope. I remember Nicki, plunking herself down on the ground in frustration, wanting to be set free, pouting and remonstrating… to no avail. Had she been released she would have scrambled up the mountain like a monkey all the way to the top where no one would have been able to retrieve her. I was 16 then so she would have been 4 years old. My mother must have had nerves of steel.
Mariette was a wonderful grandmother and great-grandmother. Much more indulgent than either of my grandmothers, but then those women lived in different and more difficult times.
I miss her and wish she could see our lovely cottage and garden here in Ireland. I imagine she would be trying to crew on our friend Tony’s boat that goes up and down the Blackwater. How delighted she would be with it all and how happy to know that our youngest son and his wife are making a home here close by. I close this missive with a gallery of my favorite photos of my Mom, including a few from long before I was even a glint in her eye.
