The Woman Who Could

The assignment said to write a letter to the toughest woman I know and I hope a loving tribute to my mom will do.

My mom Elvira Alexandra Grunte was born in Riga, Latvia, on May 26, 1911. She came into this world when the world was changing, and Latvia was going through many occupations. It was not easy, but my mom managed to get through school, university and got a job to help out her mom at the Riga Film Studios. No, not as an actress but in administration. Suddenly her life was disrupted by the approach of WW II and the coming of Soviet occupation. She was such a brave and determined woman who arranged to escape others' fate and deportation by leaving the capital, Riga, in the dead of night with some of her colleagues' help. It was a miracle that these people in a rowboat managed to reach the European continent's shores and get to one of the D.P. or Deported Person's Camps in Germany.

It was there that she reconnected with my dad, popular Latvian writer and poet Erikes Raisters. They had met in Riga, but mom was still at university, and dad had already graduated and was a reporter. Finding each other again sparked romance, and they got married in a D.P. Camp in Augustdorf, Germany, Together they arrived in the New World after the war was over, arriving in New York Harbor to start a new life. Both of my parents also became U.S. citizens. They were lucky to have me as a late in life baby, but their days of being together were much too short. They started their life together in 1951 in NYC, I came along in 1957, and my dad left us in 1967, but even though that first year was rough, my mom did not let this break her.

You have to admire my mom. These are the reasons why I miss her so much because she knew how to make everything possible. When my dad died, she was left with a ten-year-old daughter who would become a feisty teenager in three years. At this time, mom worked at the Latvian newspaper "Laiks" or "Time". The advantage she had was that her job was just a couple of blocks from where we lived. However, she wanted to be sure that I was alright, and there was a Latvian woman who took care of me, Pauline Valish. In this way, she knew I would not be alone after I came home from school,

Her salary wasn't substantial, but it was sufficient by the late sixties and early seventies standards. She had a growing child on her hands, an apartment and bills to pay. When dad died, she didn't even know how to balance a checkbook. Dad loved her so much, he told her to live as free as a bird and not worry about a thing. He didn't know he wasn't going to be around.

She learned everything she had to learn and quickly. She paid all of the bills, my school fees and kept me dressed and fed. A big help to her was friends who owned a dressmaking establishment on Long Island in Rockville Center. Their daughter was several years older than I was, and she would toss out clothes she didn't want any more, even if she had worn them only once. So from time to time, they would give mom bags and bags of fashionable clothes which fit me just fine. So I was quite the fashion plate. I even had a long leather coat lined with sheep wool.

Of course, my great love of teen idols such as David Cassidy and the Monkees required money for records and teen magazines. She provided me with everything, and I never had a moment when I had to say I need, and I don't have. Now I wasn't spoiled, mind you, but it was good to know that I could rely on mom. She did it and stretched those dollars, but I loved her for it then and will love her until we meet again someday.

She and I became the best of friends when I became a young adult, and she helped me through the trials and tribulations of my first steps into the job world. When I was not our on the weekends, we discovered a mutual liking for popular Latvian songs, and when there was nothing on T.V., we spent some Saturday nights having some wine and listening to music as well as engaging in some spontaneous improvisational dancing,

When she was in her early 80s, I fulfilled her wish and brought her back to Riga, Latvia, to live out her final years. Unfortunately, she only lived for a couple of years before she passed on, but due to returning to Latvia, I met my soul mate, and after she was gone, I stayed and spent the next twenty years with the love of my life. I returned to my homeland, the U.S., when he passed on in 2017.

She was, is, and always will remain my strength and inspirations and now rests alongside my dad in the countryside where he was born in Ranka, Latvia; these two soul mates now together forever through eternity.