Heidi Moore

My mom, Carol Offield, has led an amazing life as a powerful woman who has performed spectacular feats no one else could have.  I continue to be amazed by her daily.  

She has been a businesswoman, single parent, philanthropist, great friend, kind mother, bridge maven, and now she is a grandmother, too. 

She is unquestionably a phenomenal superheroine: It seems as though she stopped a speeding locomotive well over a hundred times when she interrupted what I was sure was the end of the world.  She soothed me with stories about what happened when she was my age, or about what happened to my grandma, or my dad.  Somehow the world, which had been barreling forward like a rocket at the speed of light at a target of complete destruction, suddenly was sailing uncomplicated in the breeze like a kite.  Then we could just laugh.  She said things like, “Stop worrying when you don’t have all the facts!” and I never listened, until I found myself repeating them to my students, hoping I could be half as smart as her.

It took the super-strength of a superheroine to be a single parent to two spirited children, particularly the demanding, devious, and difficult daughter I know I was.  

It was this super-strength, superheroine wisdom that gave her the good sense to make our childhood richer than any other kids I know: She was superheroine smart for reading aloud Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. books, instead of stuff like Stuart Little. Superheroine smart for letting us take lots of mental health days, so the other kids would have a chance to catch up.  Superheroine smart for going on strike, so we did the grocery shopping in primary school.  That was harder than doing it the standard way….and so much more fun.

Just like a superhero of stage and screen, she leapt tall buildings in a single bound when she solved the insolvable for me.  The superheroine trick that no one else’s mom could figure out was that she never did things for me.  She taught me how to do the tasks myself—beginning in kindergarten. My insolvable problem at the time was that I didn’t believe I belonged in kindergarten and wanted to advance to first grade.  So she set up a meeting for me to discuss it with the principal. Superheroine lessons, I guess. But that meeting (and, I’m sure, a bunch of background phonecalls I didn’t know about) solved an insurmountable problem. What kindergartener can talk her way into first grade? Me, it turned out, but not without her superheroine mom’s help!

My mom’s most amazing superheroine feat of solving the unsolvable and even time traveling occurred as she has cared for me as I have been sick.  The whole process of managing my illness and running a business would have caused someone else to give up.  I am so much work, and I am fully aware and very sorry that I do not always have the sunniest of dispositions.  She managed my difficult demands while living with me for several months while I was the sickest.  That’s a tall building if I ever heard it—running a business, as well as commuting back and forth between two cities.  On some days, that surely involved time travel.

Ultimately, it involved choosing between paying close attention to her business and paying close attention to me, and because I won, her business lost.  I just feel dreadfully guilty about that.  But I feel so, so eternally grateful for the gift I have had of her loving care, and her great company.

Superheroines don’t have much of a reputation for being very much fun to be around. This is one way she is nothing like a superheroine. In fact, she is great fun! We have had so much fun going around here and there and dreaming up schemes.  What a fantastic gift that has been to be with her.  

It is not surprising, then, that so many people in my life have met her and arrived at the same conclusion: Each, individually, has said the same thing:  “She’s an angel!”  So true.  A superheroine angel.  That’s what she is. I hope she is super-mortal because I never want to lose her!