To say that my mother had a “can do” spirit would have been an understatement. If she had lived past lives I would say she was once a  Pilgrim or  a  member of the Donnelly party. One that survived, that is. She had a formidable  sense of perseverance and intestinal fortitude that made any task or challenge she met seem less threatening, less daunting and well worth tackling. As a child, whenever I was faced with a  difficult math problem, or couldn’t figure out  something like a dress pattern, I would get discouraged and go  to her to ask for help. She would always respond the same way. “Of course you can do it. How hard can it be?” That was her mantra, “How hard can it be?”

When Mom was 70 years old and struggling on social security,  she decided to go back to work and applied for job as a bookkeeper at a local discount department store.   She passed the first interview and was sent upstairs to see the store manager. He must have been all of 27. Fearful that  my mother, who learned bookkeeping back in the day when they didn’t have adding  machines, might have  a hard time adjusting to the complexities of the modern computer age. So he  asked her,  “This job involves a lot of complicated computer work. Do you think you can handle that?” She took one look at him and asked him, “Did you learn how to use the computers?” Somewhat shocked and taken aback by the directness of her question, he stammered, “Yes. Yes, I did.” “Well, if you can learn, I can learn. How hard can it be?” He hired her on the spot and she worked there for seven years earning many awards for “Employee of the month.” She even trained the new hires: all much younger than herself.

Recently Sophia, who is a sophomore in highschool, announced her plans to apply to a particular Ivy League college. This particular school accepts 10% of female applicants. She has scoured the school’s website for admission requirements, has charted all of her courses for the next two years and is developing her resume of extra curricular activities and volunteer work around her desired field of study. It’s a long shot, but I don’t tell her that. Instead I say, “Go for it.  How hard can it be?”

I wonder if Mom would have been able to figure out all the features on my new Blackberry Storm.