My Mother, the Constant Engine

In another life, Linda Feldheim was glue that held battleships together.

Starting somewhere around 5 a.m. almost every day, she is stirring. The clanks and clangs heard as she organizes her day are fittingly engine-like. Her morning workout is often the only action she does solely for herself for the next 12 to 14 hours. That time period is mostly spent helping kids at Culver School in Niles, where she has worked for the last 24 years, to go through a school day without succumbing to anger, fear and frustration, and get some work done. Once the school day is over, the after-school service club she helped create begins. For two more hours Linda will show kids what work ethic means.

Once she leaves the school some time around 5 p.m. Linda usually visits her mother, who recently joined us in the Chicago area from Columbus, where Linda’s family lived for decades. Or she is helping my sister Deborah feed and put my twin two-and-a-half years old nephews to bed. And then she’ll finally return home to spend some peaceful time with my father before she starts nodding off during an episode of ‘Gilmore Girls.’

And yet I can call her any time during these waking hours. I still often seek her counsel. In constant modest words, she’ll tell you she’s sharpest in the morning and no good in the late evening. But whatever the time, so long as she’s awake, Linda will never hesitate to offer advice. She doesn’t see other people’s problems as insignificant and not worth her time, and has a knack for telling you what you might not want to hear, but should. Her wisdom almost always ends in some form of, “stop avoiding whatever it is, and just do it.”

Linda Feldheim’s entire existence is devoted to taking care of everyone around her. She won’t ever say it like that, but trust me.

This didn’t start with this present-day schedule. For as long as I can remember, she has been a full-speed locomotive of accomplishment and caring, showing her own kids every day that life is about love, but it takes real effort maintain.

Linda can’t ever shake a thought that she can encourage someone, regardless of how the result might affect her. She bought me a drum set when I was 12, and I played it very loudly at home throughout my high school years. Tell her you like a certain dish she made for dinner, the next time you see her a month’s worth of it will be waiting for you.

Ask her what she wants, for her birthday, or Mother’s Day, or any day, and she’ll simply say, “I just want to see everyone. Oh and I have something for you all.”

Thank you for being amazing in more ways than I could list here. Happy Mother’s Day.