My sister asked for memories about Mom for a birthday book she was compiling, so I thought it’d be appropriate to post my thought here as well as in the print book. So here it is, slightly updated from the print version, because I remembered something else!
One thing I definitely remember is the whistling. Mom had a tremendous whistle, one of the only sounds our dog would actually respond to other than “Wanna go for a walk?” But then there was that other whistle. The whistle you’d only hear when you were doing something you really knew you shouldn’t do, picking on a sister you knew you shouldn’t be picking on, or just generally being a bad boy when being a good boy was clearly required.
The whistle of the impending meeting between buttocks and that cursed slotted-wooden spoon.
You never saw it coming, but you could hear it. That whistle, that smack, and then the slow realization that you had a surprisingly accurate picture in your head of what that welt would look like the next day. And the knowledge that you so had it coming.
Mom was big on the ambush, and it was effective. Dad was better at working the dread machine. Go to your room and imagine your impending doom. Judgment cometh, and that right quickly. But not as quickly as you’d like.
Mom was more in the “Behold, I strike quickly” school of biblical wrath.
So maybe my most vivid memories of Mom are of wrath, but my most treasured ones are of comfort.
I wouldn’t describe myself as a sickly kid, but I certainly missed my share of school days, reliably getting strep throat about once a year, mixing in the occasional bronchitis or pneumonia. But I remember one illness especially vividly. I don’t know what I had, but it caused me sharp chest pains, which would be troublesome at any time, but I’d recently viewed “I Am Joe’s Heart” at school and was terrified of heart attacks. I’m no hypochondriac, but I was sure I had advanced heart disease at nine years old.
Mom held me. Prayed for me. Read to me. I remember I was working my way through Gulliver’s Stories, an abridgement of Gulliver’s Travels, for a book report, and counter to my usual technique for writing a book report, I was electing to actually read the book this time. I’m not sure I’d have actually done it if I hadn’t been sick that day. Mom and I took turns reading.
Did I mention she prayed for me? I remember imploring her to pray for me over and over as the pains would take me. She never refused. And I lived. Who can say but that her intercession might have been the difference? Given my many foolish ventures with fire and heights in the future, the odds get better and better that her prayers were my special armor against the Reaper.
I could go on to other topics, including the buckets of vomit Mom had to clean up on my account. I guess I’ve always been a chucker, and I always went for style points, puking from the top bunk, or the second row in church all the way to the bathrooms in the foyer. But who wants to discuss vomit?
So Mom brought me through childhood illnesses with grace, but the waking hours weren’t the only arena in which I challenged her resolve.
It was mom who sang to me when I was scared. And I was scared. A lot. I had recurring dreams of hallways of locked doors and fearsome black labs. I don’t even want to know what the interpretation might be, because I’ve always loved dogs, and my aunt and uncle had a beloved black lab I never tired of hanging out with.
I also dreamed about death a lot. Sometimes it was just your standard animal-attack dream not involving dogs (bears and tigers were the usual suspects). Sometimes it was a drive-by shooting resulting in the death of my dad, leading me to wake up and swear there was a ghostly image of Dad in the room. Or sometimes it was Dracula or some other monster I’d inadvisedly watched in a movie at a friend’s house. Lousy less-than-vigilant video store staff, letting kids check out creepy movies!
Sometimes I’d manage to get out of my bed and sneak across the hall, standing in my parents’ doorway like something out of a zombie movie. Dad would generally stir and tell me to go to the bathroom, and I realized later that this was probably a way of making sure I wasn’t sleepwalking. Sometimes I was. One time, I proved it by mistaking the bathtub for the toilet. A stream of urine makes a surprisingly recognizable sound in an empty tub and causes dads to come running. Just an FYI.
But on those times I couldn’t bear to leave my bed lest the monster under it consume me, I called for Mom. And Mom would come and sing to me that song based on Psalm 34:7:
The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.
When my son was younger and not yet aware that his Dad’s singing was totally uncool, he’d often ask for “the Angel Song” at night. It’s now one of my most treasured memories of those days. I owe it to Mom. Along with my life and probably my sanity.
Thanks, Mom, for comfort and correction.
Oh, and one more thing (this is the thing I remembered to add as I was preparing to post this): I suppose it could be filed under correction, because Mom had a particular technique for snapping me out of a rare blue-funk. Dancing. She’d grab my hands and we’d bound up and down the hallway singing, “Shall we dance, pa-pom-pom-pom!”, which was a reference to The King and I. It always made me laugh, and now I wish I had photos or video, but I suppose memories will have to suffice.
Happy (belated) Birthday, Mom!
