Editor 's note : Jim Shepard , author of `` You Think That 's Bad , '' honors the kind of mothers who never , ever hold back , especially when it comes to love , yelling and dandelion sandwiches . ( Oprah.com ) -- My mother was born Ida Picarazzi in Strangolagalli , Italy , a town whose name roughly translates as `` strangle the rooster , '' and if you were to meet my mother , you 'd think : `` Of course that 's where she 's from . '' An observer could tell from a low-flying aircraft that my mother comes from what used to be called hearty peasant stock , and when it comes to both the social niceties and interacting with her family , Ida has always had the touch of a blacksmith . When agitated , she 's something to behold , and she 's almost always agitated . She has a voice that could knock squirrels from trees . I remember a boy who lived two streets over remarking on the bus to school that he 'd heard me being disciplined the day before . She 's half-deaf , or by now more than half-deaf , thanks to a punctured eardrum from childhood , which means that even when she 's trying to be discreet -- say , when sitting in a theater and needing help with a movie 's plot -- those all around her , in a wide , wide circle , have the uncanny impression that Ida is talking directly to them . A few years ago , at her 80th birthday , I found myself wondering where to begin , when celebrating her . There are so many lessons that I realize I 've learned from Ida 's examples -- positive and negative -- over the years : The importance of calm . The advantages of beating your children with a wooden spoon as opposed to a metal one . And here 's a good rule of thumb , for those of you who might wonder what it 's like to grow up with a mother who A ) was raised in a particularly poverty-stricken region of Italy and B ) lived through the Great Depression : You 're going to learn some lessons about frugality from a woman who eats dandelion sandwiches . Oprah.com : Why every happy person needs a Greek mom . Without Ida , I also probably would n't be a writer . One characteristic of writers is a playfulness with words -- and boy , is being around Ida a crash course in that . She has , over the years , told her children to stay away from strange animals in the woods , because those animals could bite you and give you rabbis . She 's told us that someone she knew was well-off because he had an ingrown swimming pool . She 's told us , when unable to decide about something , that she did n't care ; that as far as she was concerned , it was eight of one or a half dozen of another . She 's told us that her brother Guido was so generous he 'd give you the skin off his back . She told a friend of mine that one of my favorite monster movies when I was a kid was `` King Kong vs . Gonzales . '' And how 's this for an unexpectedly highbrow contribution that my mother made to my life : Maybe more than anyone I know , she 's demonstrated just how mysterious a thing identity really is . Who are we , really ? Can we ever really know ? My mother has had a hilariously hard time keeping names and faces straight , even within her own nuclear family . Over the years , she 's called me Guido , Mario , Johnny , Agnes , Jean and Hey You . But it was n't that it was she was distracted ; it was that she was so excited about the things that other people take for granted . As in : `` Oh , my God , Guido , come look : A MONKEY ON TV ! '' Oprah.com : Jodi Picoult 's rules for life . So you can imagine how surprised I was the first time I came home from college and found Ida sitting at the kitchen table with an unsettling smile on her face . My mother ... silent ? At first , she refused to explain why . Then she said , `` Go look at your room . '' I went upstairs . I looked at my room . The floor was covered with a bright purple wall-to-wall shag rug . The walls were a deep lavender . The furniture had been stained a dark purple . I came back downstairs , and she was still smiling . `` Why is my room all purple ? '' I asked . `` The Vikings , '' she answered . `` Why is my room all purple ? '' I asked again . `` You like the Minnesota Vikings , '' she explained , as though I 'd forgotten . `` I like to watch them play , '' I said . `` I do n't want to live inside their color . '' This seems to me a quintessential Ida story , full of both over-the-top lunacy and love . I always find it moving how tireless she is in all her efforts to please . She hunted up , somewhere , a dark-purple stain and lugged all of my furniture downstairs and outside and stained it all and then lugged it all the way back upstairs . Probably my poor father was recruited , as well . It took her hours , if not days , to make my room that ugly . Oprah.com : 12 things Meghan O'Rouke wishes she could tell her mom . There are advantages , when it comes to engaging the world , to having a mother with the touch of a blacksmith . My father , now stricken with short-term memory loss , was considered by most of his friends and family to be one of the more anxious people they ever encountered . Ida worked relentlessly for decades to build bridges between her erratic kids -- who sometimes did things that seemed to suggest that we had the collective brains of a squirrel -- and her husband , who clearly preferred that we stay packed in cotton in a box until we were 21 . She worked night and day to carve out a space in which we could go out into the world and screw up . And naturally , being who we were , we obliged her . There is no one else from whom I could have learned so much about the advantages of being emotionally forthright and about the pleasures of making that emotional forthrightness vivid . You always know where Ida stands on things , whether it 's the bigheartedness of her family ( a frequent subject that brings her to tears when she considers how little it 's appreciated by the rest of the world ) or the horrors of waste ( That 's a sin , she 'll say if anyone leaves anything that resembles food on their plate . When Ida cleans a bone , it looks as if army ants have been all over it . ) Once , when I was when I was 14 or so and we were arguing about something , I teased her that she did n't love me , and she started whacking me on the arm and back as hard as she could , one whack for each syllable , while she yelled , `` Do n't you tell me that I do n't love you ! '' She was going to love me no matter what , even if she was going to have to beat me to death to prove it . There 's no one who could have better demonstrated the importance of unconditional love . Oprah.com : Motherhood : What endless love feels like . Ida Picarazzi was my first real supporter , mentor and teacher . Who would have guessed it ? Not me , at least not for the longest time . I should have , though . What could be more compelling , after all , than a Force of Nature ? Ida is a continual reminder not to do things halfway , to give oneself over to the world with a passionate intensity . I knew they loved each other , but my parents fought so much when I was a kid that when no one was yelling in the house I found myself wondering if someone had died . And yet my brother and I have been unbelievably lucky to have been in the track of her storm . Wherever she 's passed , sure , there are branches down and leaves all over the place , but the clouds look washed and beautiful , and the sky is beginning to clear . And the storm itself , we soon realize , has been mesmerizing , has been galvanizing and has been just what was necessary to shake us into feeling what anyone who 's spent any time around Ida has always felt : as though they 've really lived through something . Oprah.com : 12 things we 're too stubborn to tell our mothers . Subscribe to O , The Oprah Magazine for up to 75 % off the newsstand price . That 's like getting 18 issues FREE . Subscribe now ! TM & © 2011 Harpo Productions , Inc. All Rights Reserved .
Shepard learned the importance of calm , and frugality , from his mother , Ida . He credits her with his becoming a writer because she fostered his creativity . Ida also taught him the advantages of being emotionally forthright .