I’m choosing a superhero who is not well-known. She doesn’t have a comic book or television series named after her. But, unlike those superheroes, she’s real. My mom, Nancy (shown here, in 2010, with my dad).

Here are a couple shots of us on our trip to Italy in 2003. Mom loves to travel. I had to travel for work, so I figured someone should have a good time on at least one trip, so I made up a list of business trips I had that year and called Mom to see if she wanted to accompany me on one and if she did, which one. She chose Florence, Italy.

Here’s the two of us in a posed shot. This next shot looks really bad, but we were having fun. We’d toured a gorgeous vineyard and were having dinner there. There were nearly 20 people at our table for dinner, so all those wine bottles and glasses are not ours. I attribute the fuzziness of the photo to the photographer and not us.

I was grumpier than I should have been on this trip, and I think Mom was able to overlook it, but I’m sorry about that. I’m grumpy every single time I travel. Mom probably knows that better than many people. Despite that, I’m very thankful we could take the trip together.

But why is my mom my favorite superhero? She and my dad married relatively young. They had me right away, so I like to say we grew up together. She worked the tough waitress shifts while my dad attended college classes and worked his job at the children’s home. They were both hands-on parents, and both, really, are my superheroes, but for this exercise, Mom gets the spotlight. I’ve seen the budgets they created to get by on while living in the trailer park, working, going to school, and raising me. To say they had to count their pennies was an understatement.

I had to spend time with grandparents during that first year, because shortly after I was born, Mom had a difficult pregnancy, and my younger brother was born and died on her birthday. Mom and Dad wanted a dozen kids (Remember that poster about the toddler in the swing I mentioned on Day 1? Yep. That’s Mom, a sucker for kids.), and they had a couple miscarriages before my sister was born when I was five and a half. During all that time, they had me to contend with. My dad graduated from college and got his first job. They moved to Charles City, Iowa, and got their first home — a new or newer trailer, I’m not sure. I think they bought it, but I’m not sure about that either (Hey! I was only four!).

I do know Mom didn’t drive. She worked, usually as a waitress, but I believe she did some in home babysitting, too (because I went with her) — whatever it took for the three of us to get by.

For kindergarten, I remember Mom taking me to the bus stop and meeting me there when I got home. I was a terrible kid for her. I wanted boy stuff, and she wanted to dress me up and fix my hair in very pretty ways. My sister should have been born first. I think she liked that sort of thing.

The neighborhood kids and I got under a neighbor’s trailer and broke up some Styrofoam boards they had purchased for insulation. I still remember my dad showing me the things in the Sears Wish Book I could have bought with the money the damage I caused had cost.

My sister’s arrival was a joy. Though Dad says he doesn’t think I ever forgave them for not bringing me a brother, and an older brother, at that — yeah, toddlers aren’t too up on how that older brother/sister thing works, but my continual pleas for an older brother must have ripped their hearts out (given my brother who died, which I wasn’t really aware of until I was much older). Mom has told me they considered adopting, but they were too young to get an older brother for me (think about the extraordinary lengths that indicates they would go to provide something I wanted). Remember, adoptions in the sixties were all about appearances. (It’s okay you didn’t do it — I’m sure I wouldn’t have appreciated an older brother as much as I thought I would, and then you couldn’t have taken him back.)

They bought their first house before I started the first grade. Mom worked outside the home when she needed to, but mostly she was home for us kids. She learned to drive out of necessity — my dad was going to school for his Masters’ degree, and he had to live down in Ames at the university, so Mom got her license. Driving has never been her thing, but like many other things, she did what she had to do.

When my brother struggled in school, she read some very detailed books to try to find ways to help him. She taught me everything I needed to know about running a household — basic cooking, cleaning, sewing, etc. before I was ten. When my younger sister, born when I was 17, became terminally ill, Mom did the bulk of care for her and travel to and from St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital for her treatments. Afterward, Mom became a Registered Nurse, but she specialized in geriatrics. She’d seen enough sick kids for one lifetime. She’s retired now, but her mom moved in with her and Dad a year ago, and they are doing well together.

I never heard her complain. She never had any privacy. She wound up taking care of the animals us kids all wanted but weren’t yet responsible enough to take care of. I know she wound up finding a home for at least one who didn’t work out.

She managed finances, did home repairs, went to parent teacher conferences, and did her best to work with the schools. I still remember being horrified when my kindergarten teacher spanked a kid in class. I went home and bemoaned such treatment and was shocked to hear my parents tell me if I ever got spanked at school that I’d get spanked at home, too. The injustice! But I knew they meant it.

Some kids may have been able to use their parent to get their way at school, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen for me. Mom did advocate for me and my siblings. I had a lot of trouble with my first male teacher in the fifth grade. Mom has told me several times since then that she should have fought harder for me, but I don’t think so. I know she worked to keep things balanced and help negotiate the path between me and my teacher, but in hindsight, I don’t think she should have done anything more than she did. It was something I needed to work through.

We moved before I entered fifth grade, and I didn’t do well with the move. Those were awful years for me, but they must have been awful years for my parents, too. I have no idea what would have made things go more easily for me — I know they tried everything imaginable, but it was just something I had to get through.

When we moved at the end of my ninth grade year (probably a good thing, because I was on the verge of making some bad choices, and the move mostly alleviated that — I still did a few dumb things, but nothing particularly serious), I had a long summer where I didn’t know many people. I spent that summer putting together jigsaw puzzles while Mom ironed. Puzzles and conversations with Mom made a difficult summer easier.

If adversity mean God has a lot of faith in you, my Mom is God’s Right Hand Lady. That’s all I’ll say about that. Mom is my superhero.