Fly While You Still Have Wings: And Other Lessons My Resilient Mother Taught Me

In this heartfelt memoir about her mother Hilda's final years, Joyce Rupp shares the lessons her mother taught her, especially to "fly while you still have wings." As a poor farmer's wife and the mother of eight living on rented land in Maryhill, Iowa, Hilda lived a life with hard labor and constant responsibility-from milking cows and raising chickens to keeping the farm's financial ledger. Rupp shows how the difficulties of her mother's early years and family life, including the loss of a twenty-three-year-old son, forged a resilience that guided her through the illnesses and losses she faced later on. This affectionate profile of their relationship is, at the same time, an honest self-examination as Rupp shares the ways she failed to listen to, accept, and understand her mother in her final years. Rupp begins each chapter with a meditative poem that captures the essence of each stage in the journey. Her unfailing candor and profound faith illumine this story of a mother and daughter with a universal spirit of hope, reconciliation, and peace. Readers who care for the elderly will identify with the joys and sorrows that Rupp experienced.
Likewise, those who are grieving for a parent will find an open and sensitive portrayal of the conflicting emotions that arise in the process of letting go. Anyone approaching their elder years will discover a model of how to enter the aging process with dignity and honesty that accepts the