Farewell to the Queen and thanks to Mom
Her Parent & Family newspaper column, May 2006: a 'day of joy and sorrow' — a niece christened the same day her 93-year-old grandmother died — and a tribute to her mother and…
[Transcribed 2026-06-02 from the print clipping (Parent & Family, May 4, 2006, pp. 38 & 41); a few passages reconstructed from a dense scan.]
April 23, 2006 was a day of both joy and sorrow. On that day, Stella Pearl Libby was christened at Sacred Heart in Yarmouth, and Mary O'Brien Emery died at Ledgeview Assisted Living in Cumberland. In the morning I experienced the sweetness of my infant niece smiling her way through a post-Easter baptism. By the afternoon, I was mourning the passing of her namesake, my 93-year-old Nana. It is said that to everything there is a season — a time to weep and a time to laugh.
Nana Emery enjoyed the seasons of her life. Born the oldest child of a large Irish Catholic South Boston family, she outlived all of her siblings in the near-century of her existence. She met my grandfather, Herbert, at Fort Williams in Cape Elizabeth, where they were both stationed (she as a nurse) during World War II. They raised three children in South Portland, then retired to the southern part of the country, where they made many friends and traveled extensively. After Grampy's death in 1979, Nana widened her cadre of acquaintances and kept herself busy with get-togethers and crafts. Called "the Queen Mother" by my family, she was known for knitting extravagantly-colored blankets. She kept a cadre of ceramic animals, including a favorite pink-ribboned dog named Shu-Shu.
When her health began failing several years ago, she moved back to Maine, with Shu-Shu by her side. My mother — her daughter, Mary, alongside Nana's sons Paul and John — cared for her devotedly. My mother helped Nana with groceries, doctor's visits and transportation. She nursed her through several surgeries and rehabilitations. She swabbed her mother's mouth with ice water when Nana was no longer able to eat or drink. She held her hands as she was dying.
In honor of Women's Health Month, which falls in May (along with Mother's Day, of course), I urge you to find these women in your own life and thank them for their dedication. Linda Armstrong Kelly — Lance Armstrong's mother — will be speaking at the seventh annual MaineHealth Learning Resource Centers' Women's Wellness Day on Saturday, May 13 at the Sheraton in South Portland.
As a mother myself, I have relied heavily on Mom. She has rocked my babies to sleep, and watched Little League games in the rain. She doesn't care that I don't like to cook, or that my house is not always immaculate. What I've learned as a mother is that we need to assist one another in motherhood, and in all of life's equally-daunting endeavors. We need to laugh together as we baptize our smiling babies and weep together as we bury our dead.
I truly believe that motherhood is the "toughest job you'll ever love" (my apologies to the original creators of the tagline). When we become mothers, we give up much of what we previously knew of ourselves and our lives. Then we worry ourselves over every decision, from what foods to feed our children to whether we should stay home with them full-time.
Shu-Shu is going to miss you, Nana. I will, too.
[About the author: Dr. Lisa Belisle is a medical director for the MaineHealth Learning Resource Centers. She practices family and preventive medicine in Yarmouth, where she lives with her husband and three children.]