My mother was six foot one. When she was nineteen she had fall from her horse and suffered terrible spinal injuries. After two years of rehab, she made a full recovery, to be walking. The staff would say she had a will of steel. Mother would say she had a back of steel, due to all the staples, rods and fusion in her back.
She would forever find it difficult – some days, impossible – to bend. I loved to watch her feed the dogs, of which we had many. Their food was dropped from a great height, practice and wishful thinking guiding most of it into the appropriate bowls. The cat, Ferdinand, was always there to lick up any opportunistic windfalls. Whilst small for a tom cat, he had no fear of the dogs, and they had a healthy respect for him.
I often wondered if this unbending physicality contributed to her inflexible nature. But later I learned that sometimes life throws us spurious correlations, just to mess with us.
My mother was christened Fleur, which is one of those cases of the name totally not suiting the person. At the age of eleven she looked up female names meaning intelligent and strong. Berdy was a Russian name that she chose. I don’t think anyone even knew her as Fleur.
Others found her at once fascinating, and also a little terrifying. She always seemed to have a swarm of fans surrounding her, most of whom she paid little attention to. It was sort of comforting to see that she was popular, but kind of irked me at the same time because she was so offhand to nearly everyone. But instead of working against her this air of disinterest only seemed to make people try harder to get her attention. What joy they took if she looked down at them, dark eyes and hair giving a crow like impression, and showed them that little closed lip smile!
“People are such sycophants,” I’d think to myself, “basking in reflected glory. They wouldn’t be hanging around so much if she was dumpy and plain looking.”
But plain looking she was not. Nearly a foot taller than many women of her generation, I could always find her in a crowd. Which is lucky because I was always losing her. Or she was losing me. Always moving with purpose, her long strides out strode me in no time. Eventually she’d stop and with a swish of long black hair, look all around with a tiny scowl until she saw me. Then with a quick tilt up of her head, as if to say “catch up,” she’d be off again. Her posture was always perfect. I don’t know if this was because of all the structure in her back or just because she was Berdy. Needless to say, she made an enchanting sight, and turned many heads.
Her striking looks aside, my mother had the sharpest brain that I’ve ever encountered. It didn’t matter what the topic, she knew something about it. And it wasn’t just general knowledge, or fun facts, but authentic researched and documented information. If some poor fool dared to challenge her, she could quote her source, and correct any misconceptions, urban myths and propaganda without a moment’s hesitation. Her memory for facts and details was phenomenal.
As a child, I took this for granted. Weren’t all mums a fount of knowledge? All wise, all knowing, unwavering in their beliefs and opinions? I realised the truth of this when I was old enough to mix in the world. But I never thought other mums to be inferior to mine, just different. In many ways I wished my mother was more like some of them. But I digress.
She and my father met as teenagers at pony club. My father, whose name is James, tells stories of how fearless she was as a young rider. Mother always gets a strange look, that seems to be a mixture of proud reminiscence and sad regret. As if it was her fearlessness that contributed to her life-threatening injuries.
The truth, it seems, is that it was simply a terrible accident. Berdy, was a champion Eventer. You might say Three Day Events are the equestrian version of a triathlon. The first day is dressage, and second is an arduous cross country course with challenging jumps along the way, and finally show jumping. As expected, Berdy was in the lead after the dressage event. Then in the cross country section, that was usually her strongest leg, her horse stumbled before a jump. Berdy went over his head and landed on the edge of the jump and the horse followed and ended up on top of her.
My father was one of the first on the scene because he was officialling at the previous jump and had watched it all unfold. Berdy couldn’t recall any details of that day or the next ten days. But others who were there all remark on how calm and in control Dad was. Everyone knew he was in love with her, but secretly thought that with his homely farmer looks and soft gentle ways he was no match for her. That my dear reader is the remarkable nature of love looking to fulfil its yin and yang.
Berdy was in an induced coma in intensive care for eight days. She had sustained many injuries in the fall. Five cracked ribs, both shoulders dislocated, a broken clavicle, three damaged spinal vertebrae, cracked skull with bleeding on the brain and a compound fracture of her ulna, resulting in the grisly sight of bone erupting through the muscle and skin of her forearm.
She would wake from her big sleep to see Jimmy, as everyone called him, sitting by her bedside, reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. He later confessed that he didn’t understand what the hell it was all about, but thought that Berdy would be impressed to see him reading it.
The accident was definitely a major turning point in Berdy’s life. Sometimes people have arrested development from the point of a great trauma and don’t seem to fully mature. Berdy’s long recuperation time gave her the luxury of introspection born of boredom. She set upon a path of self-discovery that would take her from a very quirky and awkward teenager to a charismatic, confident, and yes still rather quirky, young woman. Mothering was probably something that she wasn’t suited to, but hey, if she hadn’t gone there, then I wouldn’t be here telling you this story.
I could say, “and the rest is history.” But that would imply a kind of “and they all lived happily ever after,” type of ending. I’d be guilty of downplaying the chaotic, multigenerational bubbling pot that is the story of my family. So instead I’ll finish with “there may be more to this tale, but that will have to wait for another day.”
To read more from Amanda Gambas and other Mountain Ash Chapter writers, please click here; https://mountainashchapter.com.au
To learn more about Eventing in Australia click here;https://www.equestrian.org.au/Eventing
Amanda Gambas Author 