Mother's Day

By JEFF WELSCH Chronicle Sports Editor

She wasn’t thinking about her now. Not here, not on Soldier Hollow’s notorious Hermit’s Hill, where Nordic skier dreams are made and crushed.

Erik Petersen/Chronicle Erika Flowers poses at her Bozeman home near a portrait of her mother, Hedvig Rappe-Flowers, who died of cancer Jan. 4 at age 48. That was the way her mother had wanted it, had planned it, had prepared her even as the disease continued to gnaw away at her athletic physique. Go on with your life and live for the moment, Hedvig Rappe-Flowers had always said, and that’s what she had modeled since her daughter Erika was 5, when the word “cancer” was first murmured.

So that’s what Erika did. She kept competing after that initial diagnosis in 1995, kept skiing after her parents had called her to the deck of their southeast Bozeman home last November and told her of the bleak prognosis, even flew to Michigan that January week she suspected would be her mom’s last.

And that’s what 17-year-old Erika Flowers was telling herself now on a stunningly beautiful Wednesday afternoon in early March, barely eight weeks after her mother’s passing. Only this time, she was drawing on a previously untapped reservoir of will, surprising even herself.

Erika had never won a race — not one of such significance anyway, not one where the others in her loyal sisterhood of friends, especially Kate Dolan, had competed. Yet on this morning, during the biggest Junior Nationals skate race of the year, she had mustered the steely resolve to break away in the 10-kilometer freestyle event.

She had dared the half-dozen in the pack to follow and it hadn’t, couldn’t. Her lead grew to five seconds, then 10, 15 and finally a staggering 17.

Erika peered over her shoulder as she ascended Hermit’s Hill, where her coach, Dragan Danevski was running alongside, chirping giddy encouragement. She could scarcely believe what she was seeing, especially considering how she had struggled most of the winter, her mind elsewhere.

Had she thought about her then, maybe this unexpected burst of resolve would’ve made more sense.

After all, wasn’t it just at Thanksgiving that her mom had insisted on skiing out to where Erika was racing in West Yellowstone, and back again, even though she could scarcely breathe? Hadn’t her mom once crewed on a three-woman fishing boat in Alaska? Hadn’t she once trekked there solo?

And hadn’t she insisted on painting to the very last despite the fatigue, the pain, the medications, the tubes and the creeping tentacles of what she had always labeled “a major inconvenience?”

Yes, but at this minute that was all buried somewhere in Erika’s subconscious, her genetics, her heart. Go on with your life, she had said; live for the moment.

“It’s now or never,” Erika had said to herself as Hermit’s Hill loomed.

So Erika skied, faster than she’d ever skied in her life, skied so fast that even the best efforts of an entire pack could only trim half of her lead. Down she came into the 20,000-seat stadium, with nothing but glittering snow, ecstatic Bridger Ski Foundation teammates and a finish line ahead.

“Oh my gosh,” she suddenly realized, allowing herself to think the unthinkable, “I’m going to win! I can’t believe this!”

Erika crossed the line, and her teammates, who had been there for her all along, raced to her to share the moment. The first to arrive was Mellie Park, who threw her arms around Erika as they collapsed to the snow, laughing.

“Oh, Erika,” Park said, “your mom would’ve been so proud!”

For a few moments, they continued to laugh.

And then they cried.

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How do you explain cancer to a 5-year-old? How do you get her to grasp that mommy is sick when she seems so vigorous? How do you walk the fine line between living the Flowers family’s normal zesty life and acknowledging the abnormal cell division that regularly disrupts it?

Pat and Hedvig Flowers did it with grace, humor and even-keeled candor from the moment the breast cancer was first diagnosis in 1995, when the family lived in Missoula.

They’d hike to the ‘M’ above the University of Montana, where Hedvig earned degrees in art history and teaching, and explain what the word “malignant” meant. They’d cavort in the shadow of the Bitterroots and describe what was happening when she went to the hospital for regular treatments.

The ‘C’ word would be as much a part of the family lexicon as chores, schoolwork and, later, taking their springer spaniel Satch for a walk.

And in her own quiet way, Hedvig modeled the mantra she’d hold steadfastly for 12 years: Simply surviving wasn’t enough; she vowed to live.

“She’s so strong-willed, you wouldn’t have ever thought she was sick,” Erika remembers. “I never even realized what cancer was. Everyone else was making such a big deal about it, and I was always like, ‘What’s the big deal?’

“I guess I realized this fall that she’s just been able to cope with it and handle it so well.”

Certainly it never stopped them from savoring their passion for outdoor activities. Erika and her sister, Natalie, two years younger, played soccer, participated in track and, when their father took a job with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks in Bozeman in 1999, they gravitated to the Nordic trails at Bohart Ranch and beyond.

As recently as four years ago, Erika was still a relative novice, still finding her way on the trails. But the same reservoir of dedication and determination that made her exceptional at anything she tried, carried over to her newest sport.

“Headstrong,” is how Park describes her. Sound familiar?

Erika was always the one who would stay after BSF practices and ask more questions about training. She was the one who made the most of every practice moment on the trails. She was the one who would accept nothing less than reaching her fullest potential.

Two years ago, competing as a 15-year-old against 16- and 17-year olds, the Bozeman High student qualified for a Junior National team headed to Europe for the Scandinavian Cup.

“That was, for her, the turning point,” Danevski said. “She saw that maybe skiing is the sport she can excel at the most or best.”

Danevski is convinced Erika has only begun to tap her potential, especially now that she’s given up track to focus solely on skiing. Certainly it’s a ticket to college if she so chooses, a strong possibility for a well-rounded high school junior who envisions a major in international studies so she can travel the world — just like her mother, a native of Sweden.

“I think she’s one of the rare kids in this country in that sport,” Danevski said. “If she would like to go 100 percent it would for her not be a problem to be on the U.S. team or make the Olympics.

“She’s talented, but not just the physical part. She has mental talent. And she’s able to get through pressure.”

Most of the time, anyway.

After her mother’s initial diagnosis in 1995, a series of treatments eventually worked, and Hedvig would be cancer-free for more than five years, frequently an indication that the disease has been subdued.

Then it returned. This time it wasn’t going away. By last spring, the cancer had spread to the lungs.

In late November, Pat and Hedvig called the kids to the patio after one of their frequent journeys to the oncologist in Missoula. They news was dire: Their mom could have two months, or two weeks or even two days. She was quitting chemotherapy so that in whatever time she had left, at least she wouldn’t feel so lousy, and she could keep up with her art to ensure money for the kids’ skiing and other activities after she was gone.

“It was almost surreal,” Erika recalls. “I knew that she’d have to live with it the rest of her life, but I never really thought about her dying.”

Go on with your life. Live for the moment. That was still the message, and Erika tried. Teen-agers are supposed to think about school, about the Homecoming dance, about where to hang out on Saturday night.

But this was beyond simply living with cancer. That was evident by the way the entire BSF team was struggling emotionally after Pat Flowers had told Danevski that they would one day have to confront the inevitable, and could they be extra sensitive to Erika and Natalie?

Natalie, reconciling the news in her own way, continued to ski well, even beating Erika, who struggled to keep up with Dolan and Co. They never talked about whether they should quit their time-intensive sport while they still had time with their mom, because they knew what she would say.

After all, there she was, ignoring the pain and fatigue in her own determination to complete the illustrations for a children’s book about a Bernese Mountain Dog, called “Open Heart.”

“Her mom wanted her to keep skiing,” Park said, “and her mom wanted her to be happy.”

So Erika tried — tried to put her mother’s inevitability aside, tried to ski unfettered, tried to live a normal life for someone who had just turned 17 in mid-November.

“I think she was trying to put it on the side, that everything is OK,” Danevski said. “I’m a high school student, I’m a skier. I never saw any sign in training that something is not perfect.

“But what I saw for the first time was that her resolve early in the season was not good. I think she was probably thinking too much about her mother, or not sleeping, or not being able to concentrate. Her results were not there.”

Erika forged ahead, through their last Christmas and New Year’s together, when finally came the time for a final philosophical dilemma.

It was the first week in January, and Senior Nationals were scheduled for Houghton, Mich. Go or stay? Live your life or spend a few final moments with your gravely ill mother?

Erika talked with her father, her coach, her teammates. Go, they said. That’s what Hedvig would want.

She went.

“I guess in the end, you can’t just sit at home waiting for her to pass away,” Erika explained. “You have to keep living. That’s what she tried to do.”

Pat Flowers made arrangements to bring Erika home at a moment’s notice, if necessary. On the first day, a Wednesday, she had modest success at the classic races; the next day, Jan. 4, 2007, in the skate race, she had her best day in months, putting her in the chase for a championship.

As she walked in the parking lot with Park, Danevski told her she should call home and report her success. Erika wondered aloud why it couldn’t it wait until they returned to the hotel.

Danevski insisted. Erika looked at him with knowing eyes, then she called her dad. Yes, Pat Flowers told his daughter, your mom is gone (she was 22 days shy of her 49th birthday).

Erika melted into a slushy puddle in the parking lot and was quickly embraced by Park, followed one after another by her teammates.

“It was basically holding her and letting her release the weight from her shoulders,” Park said. “A little while later, the rest of the girls showed up, and we were like a big mob of crying BSF girls.”

Erika had a flight scheduled that afternoon, but there was more racing the next morning, and after that the always-fun relay with her BSF mates.

Go on with your life. Live for the moment.

“I thought it would be easier to be with so many people that care about me and with people I love than to come home where everybody is really said,” she said.

Erika stayed in Houghton. She fell in the sprint races the next day, but she and her team had their best performance of the week in the relay.

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The memorial service was one of those bittersweet affairs where the crowds are mourning and celebrating at the same time: Color, food, humor.

Maybe even a little relief, too. No longer did Hedvig have to deal with oxygen tanks, needles and her hair falling out.

Most of all, Erika got to see how many lives her mother had touched.

“If my memorial service is half that, I’ll be happy,” she said.

Over time, the family began to adjust, though it was quickly apparent just how much Hedvig had taken care of around the house even while ill. Teachers were understanding, coaches gave her some space, teammates encouraged her as she gradually got back in the groove.

She skied solidly in six qualifying races after her mother’s death and before Soldier Hollow. Before the skate race — her strongest event — on that striking morning in Utah, she had an unusual sense of calm and confidence, drawn in part from her love of the course but also from somewhere she couldn’t quite explain.

She hung back early, staying with the pack, feeling out the race and avoiding the falls that would end Dolan’s hopes, until teammate Sarah Pierce skied alongside and said, “Erika, you need to get up there!”

And so she did, passing one skier after another, until she rounded a corner and took the lead, then skied away from everybody to Hermit’s Hill and beyond — the race of her life.

As she extended her arms on the victory stand, tears flowed from an exuberant crowd that understood the range of emotions Erika was feeling, a curious collision of elation and sadness. Two months later, Danevski chokes up as he recalls that sunny day.

“The whole team, we got together and gave her our heart,” he said. “Each of us was the happiest person in the world for Erika. It was maybe one of my greatest moments in coaching.”

Agrees Park: “It was probably the most exciting thing to watch, her breakaway. It was totally unexpected. The whole team just went nuts. Knowing what she had gone through this year, it was amazing — almost inspirational.”

Even now, Erika struggles to wrap her arms around the day she skied out of nowhere and became the best of the best.

“I knew I had it in me — sort of,” she said.

No, she hadn’t thought about her mother there at Soldier Hollow, but Hedvig Rappe-Flowers surely was there with her. In her genes. In her strong will. And somewhere deeper, from a place that perhaps Erika subconsciously grasped for the first time as she approached Hermit’s Hill.

“I didn’t feel once she was gone I’d be helpless,” she said. “She made me independent and showed me I could take care of myself. Even when she was gone, it was surreal, but I was able to cope really well.”

Tears? Not for long. After all, somewhere, free at last of the pain and the fatigue and the medications and the tubes, a mother surely was smiling.

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