Sandra "Sandy" Bales Cott

Mom told me a story one time. She was a teacher in a junior high school in Montana, talking with a 14 year old 9th grader. She told me she was talking with him about jobs and careers and life paths. He told her what he really wanted to do was walk off into the mountains and just be a mountain man. Mom said “So I told him let’s look at this carefully and see how you can actually do it. You’ll have to eat, you’ll have to stay warm, have water and food. You like being alone but you also like being with people. How do you set up this life for yourself? Will you need money, or can you live without it? Will you someday want a wife, and kids? Exactly what will you need in your backpack as you walk into the forest?” This is Sandy Cott. She loved helping other people to be all they could be. She encouraged them to take their own life paths, and didn’t flinch away from the difficulties that might bring them. She would say “there is a rule here, if you steal or cheat the consequences will likely be such and such.” She never got down on her knee to a child and told him “I will never let anything bad happen to you.” She told the truth gently to kids and did not believe in hiding anything. She chose as her career field Special Education and work with disabled kids. Again her goal and desire was to put each one on a path that was the best possible for that child. She served kids in Montana, Idaho and Bush Alaska for many years. And if working with children ever got to be too much, she loved to make things with her hands and mind. Over the years she made so many beautiful things by painting, sewing and knitting, she made stained glass, jewelry, gardening and I’m sure I am forgetting some handicrafts and art she created. As I write this I’m wearing the warm and comfortable polar fleece robe she made me some 35 years ago. When Mom was dying, my Dad and we children gathered around her. We just talked about memories of her, happenings in her life and our own lives. Mom was unconscious but if she did hear us, she would have been happy to just listen. She would have loved hearing what each of us was making of our lives. She loved new things, new ideas, unexpected ways of understanding, and what her kids were doing. My hope is that this life is a preparation for bigger and better things. I believe that Sandy Cott continues to help others, nourishing plants and children and with her hands and mind making something beautiful, useful and interesting.