In the intervening years between that long ago moment of love and our reminiscing, the bond forged between my mother and me in my early childhood was sorely tested. During my rebellious teens and early twenties, she saw little in my eyes but anger and heard little in my voice but recriminations.
Though as adults my mother and I slowly built a strong relationship, I longed to take back those hurtful years of my youth and replace them with memories of love and kindness. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t change the past any more than I could iron out the wrinkles etched deep in her face or restore to her the vitality of her youth. I could only stand beside my beautiful seventy-year-old mother and whisper, “I love you, Mom.”
And she could only smile and reply, “I’ve always known that.”
As I stand in my bedroom smelling the past from deep within the folds of my mother’s dress, I am thankful I have it to remind me of the strength of a mother’s love and the power of a moment. But I am most thankful my mother and I still have time to build enduring memories that will sweeten the past with their musty perfume.
Kristy Ross
An Impromptu Dance at Dusk
Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children.
Charles R. Swindoll
Engrossed at the computer, I was typing some very impassioned poetry written by my eighty-two-year-old neighbor, Rosemary. My six-year-old son, Jake, ran up to me. “Mom, let’s do something fun together. Now! C’mon!”
Deeply engrossed in the stories of Rosemary’s unfulfilled dreams and missed opportunities, I was ready to reply, “Jake, we’ll do something in a little bit. I want to work a little longer.” Instead, Rosemary’s words haunted me, carrying new meaning in my own life. I thought of her sad laments. The wisdom of her years spoke to me, and I decided the poems could wait. My son could not.
“What would you like to do?” I asked, thinking of the new library books we could read together.
“Let’s dance,” he replied.
“Dance?” I asked.
“Yes, just you and me . . . pleeeeez; I’ll be right back,” he said as he dashed out of the room. He returned a few moments later with his hair a bit wet and combed over to the side, a shy smile and his black, flowing Batman-turned-into-Prince-Jake cape over his shoulders. He pulled me off my chair and led me upstairs.
The blinds were up and the descending sun was casting shadows against the picturesque night sky. Jake led me to the middle of his braided wool rug and then turned on the radio. “There Mom. I found us some rock and roll.” He took my hand, and we danced, twisted, turned and twirled. We giggled and laughed and danced some more.
My side aching, I told him I needed a rest. Ever so seriously he responded, “Mom, let me put something romantic on now.” He found a beautiful slow song, bowed, and then took my hand as we began to slow dance together. His head was at my waist, but our feet kept rhythmic time.
“Mom,” he said a moment later as he looked up at me, “can you get down on your knees and dance with me so we can look at each other’s face while we dance?” I almost responded with why I wouldn’t be able to comply with his ridiculous request. Instead, captured by the moment, I laughed, dropped down on my knees, and my little man led me in a dance I will always cherish.
Jake looked deep into my eyes and claimed, “You’re my darling, Mom. I’ll always love you forever and ever.” I thought of the few short years I had left before an obvious list of my faults would replace Jake’s little-boy idolization. Of course, he would still love me—but his eyes would lose some of the innocence and reverence they now revealed.
“Mommy,” he said. “We’ll always be together. Even when one of us dies, we’ll always be together in our hearts.”
“Yes, we will, Jake. We’ll always be together no matter what,” I whispered as I wiped a silent tear.
Dusk quietly settled in as this Mom and her Little Prince danced together, ever so slowly, cheek to cheek . . . and heart to heart.
Marian Gormley
Billy the Brave
As young Billy Spade lay down in his bed,
His mom sat beside him and happily said,
“Tonight’s your big moment, your very own room.
Your brother’s at Grandma’s, in bed I assume.
When I was a girl, my room was my own.
I know that it’s scary to sleep all alone.”
“Scary?” said Billy, a smile on his face.
“No way would I ever be scared of this place.
You may have forgotten, I’m brave Billy Spade.
Nothing could scare me, ’cause I’m not afraid.
If a lion came over and knocked on my door,
Then let himself in and started to roar,
Then stood there and growled with claws and teeth bared,
I wouldn’t be frightened. I wouldn’t be scared.
I’d walk over to him, and grab his big snout,
And look in his eyes, then I’d start to shout.
‘Look here Mr. Lion,’ I’d say without fear,
‘You better stop growling and get out of here!
No sound you might make, and no thing you might do
Could possibly scare me. I’m not scared of you.’
Then the lion, just knowing that he had been beat,
Would turn and start running. He’d make his retreat.
That big, silly lion should never have dared.
I wouldn’t be frightened. I wouldn’t be scared.”
“You’re a very brave boy,” said Billy Spade’s mom.
“But when the room’s dark, and silent, and calm,
And you’re all alone, why you just may find
That frightening thoughts may enter your mind.”
“No way!” said Billy, “not Billy the Brave,
For even if monsters came out of their cave,
And into my bedroom in one of my dreams,
I know that it’s not all as bad as it seems.
With big ugly faces, sharp toothed and long-haired . . .
I wouldn’t be frightened. I wouldn’t be scared.
I’d walk right up to them and yell ‘You’re not real!
Get out of my room!’ and then they’d start to squeal.
‘We’re sorry! We’re sorry!’ they’d rant and they’d rave,
As they’d back through the door and they’d carefully wave,
And then they’d run screaming on back to their cave,
Just glad to escape from Billy the Brave.
So as you see Mom, I think I have made,
My point very clear, that I’m not afraid.
Even if aliens from a planet called Zed,
Came into my room with six eyes on their head.
Or a ghost floated in, and said to me ‘Boo!’
I’d say to them all ‘I’m not scared of you!’
You see Mom, it’s useless for you to have cared.
I wouldn’t be frightened. I wouldn’t be scared.”
“Okay,” said his mother, “I hope you sleep tight.
You’re a very brave boy and I love you, good night.”
And with that she walked out and closed Billy’s door.
So no one was inside his room any more.
And as Billy lay there, he started to think.
And while he was thinking, he slept not a wink.
He thought about lions, with claws and teeth bared.
He thought about monsters, sharp toothed and long-haired.
He thought about aliens from a planet called Zed.
He just couldn’t rid all these thoughts from his head!
He thought about ghosts coming in saying “Boo!”
Then what do you think that Billy might do?
He jumped out of bed, and he ran to his mom,
Where she lay asleep, all quiet and calm.
Then he jumped into her bed where she calmly lay,
Just in case she got frightened, or she got afraid.
J. T. Fenn
Cellular Love
My mother called tonight while I was cooking dinner. Again, for the third time today. I knew it was her because the words “Mom’s cell” lit up my own cell phone like a marquee on Times Square. I lay down my cutting knife and shook the pieces of onion and red pepper from my hands. Mom with a cell phone; boy, have things changed!
There was a time in my life, B.C. (Before Cell phones), when my mother would become anxious, depressed or even mildly hysterical if she couldn’t reach me by phone. No matter that I worked full-time and ran a marathon life shuttling kids, groceries and the dog from one end of town to the other. If she called the house, and I didn’t answer, something had to be wrong.
“Where are you? I’ve tried a hundred times but you don’t answer. Is anybody there?” were the plaintive words I’d find on my answering machine after returning home from a long day at work. If my mother got lucky, she’d reach my daughter and tell her to leave me a message, which I’d usually find about a week later, written in crayon on the back of the phone bill. “Call Gramma. She wants to know if you still live here.”
I move about the kitchen banging pots, the cell phone balanced precariously between my cheek and raised left shoulder. I make a mental note to cancel the chiropractic appointment I made for neck pain and resolve to buy a headset instead.
I toss the salad as my mother shares the events of her day: a doctor’s appointment for my father who can’t see as well as he thinks but she lets him drive anyway, lunch with a friend whose husband has Alzheimer’s disease, and an exercise class for osteoporosis even though she’s sure the teacher has shrunk two inches since she began taking the class. It doesn’t really matter what we talk about. What matters most is the invisible line of connection we create in spite of the time and distance between us.
A friend is dying of cancer, and my mother wants to know if she should visit her or wait to be asked.
“You should go,” I tell her.
What about Eleanor’s husband, the one with Alzheimer’s. Should she invite them to dinner or would it be too hard?
“For whom?” I ask.
At seventy-eight, my mother now lives in a country whose borders are defined by mountains of fear. Its landscape is restricted by age, illness and the loss of much of what and whom she has cherished and known. The roads she traveled on so easily in her youth have become more treacherous as she loses confidence in her ability to navigate through the world we live in today. Yet she faces these obstacles with a will of iron, determined to fill her life with meaning and purpose. At times, this translates into trying to control a part of mine.
“Did you use that Silver Palate spaghetti sauce recipe I sent you? It has all the essential vitamins and lots of black olives, which are good for your system,” she counsels.
“Oh, yeah, it was great!” I fib as I stir a jar of store bought marinara sauce into the pasta. When I was a new wife and mother, this type of domestic micromanaging drove me crazy. Now I’m just grateful that someone is still worried about my vitamin intake and regularity.
“I’m sending you some articles about skin care. I think you should do something about those little brown spots on your face,” she says with the authority of a dermatologist.
I look in the mirror and notice a blotch of spaghetti sauce on my chin.
When I left for college, I didn’t realize that my departure would trigger an emotional spiral downward that took my mother months to overcome. She began marking her life by the events that occurred in mine: the afternoon I graduated from law school, the evening of my wedding, the morning my son was born. She needed so much more assurance once I was gone, and sharing the everyday events in our lives was the salve that soothed her loneliness. If I was preoccupied or too tired to talk, I would simply listen to her stories while I folded clothes or packed school lunches for the kids.
An outsider listening to our conversations might think them trivial, but in reality, they are the bedrock upon which our deeper and more profound understandings occur. I hear in her words the true concern she has about my father’s failing eyesight and her fear that many of her lifelong friends will soon be gone. I know that underlying her recipes and medical advice is the fear that I’m working too hard or not taking care of myself. In discussing the more banal whats, whos and whys of our lives, we open doors to an intimacy we both want from our relationship.
Several years ago, I sent my mother a Mother’s Day card that still hangs on her refrigerator door. On the cover, a woman is applying red lipstick in the rearview mirror of her station wagon while driving the kids to school. The caption reads: “Oh my God, I think I’ve become my mother!” Printed on the inside are the words: “I should only be so lucky.”
I hang up just as my husband walks through the door, cell phone falling from my ear like an oversized clip-on earring. He picks it up off the floor as I acknowledge, “My mother just called.” Whatever the cost, whenever the time, she has my number. It’s called cellular love.
Amy Hirshberg Lederman
Mini Massage Therapists
Little deeds of kindness,
Little words of love,
Help to make earth happy
Like the heaven above.
Julia Fletcher Carney
It had been a long and exhausting day. My husband was out of town for the third night in a row, the house was a mess, the phone kept ringing, laundry and papers were everywhere, my six-year-old twins were screaming, and my head was pounding. It was a reality-based type of day with no dreamy visions of being the perfect mother with a beautiful, spotless home, laundry all neatly folded in drawers and children playing angelically side by side.
My pleas of “Stop fighting, you two!” “Please stop running in the house!” and “Please play quietly!” went unheeded.
“Mom, Jake came in my room!”
“I did not!”
“Yes, you did . . . Mom—he’s not listening!”
“You’re not the boss of me!”
“But it’s my room!”
“So what! Who do you think you are, Princess Tara or something?”
“Mom, Jake is calling me Princess Tara again! Mom!”
I screamed, “Stop it, you two!” Rather than quiet them, my loud reprimand caused their voices to escalate.
“BUT MOM, I TOLD HIM TO GET OUT OF MY ROOM!”
“BUT MOM, SHE COMES IN MY ROOM SOMETIMES WHEN I TELL HER NOT TO. . . .”
I asked my children to work it out between themselves and decided to find a quiet room for a few moments.
Within a minute they burst in.
“Mom, she won’t share her Disney characters even though she’s not playing with them.”
“That’s because you didn’t share your markers with me the last time I asked you.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have lost your markers. It’s your own fault if you didn’t take care of them, right, Mom?”
“Mom?”
“Mom?”
I gathered my children and whispered, “Jake and Tara, let’s go hug each other quietly for a few moments. I don’t feel very well. I’m also feeling sad right now. I love you both so much, and I would love a very special hug from each of you.”
Their response was quite different than when I had shouted at them to quiet down. With rather serious looks on their faces, they asked, “But why are you sad, Mom?”
“I don’t really know,” I replied. “I just know I need some quiet time and some extra special love from both of you right now.”
“Okay, Mommy,” they whispered. They each took one of my hands, led me to my bed, fluffed up my pillows and told me to lie down. With a big hug and some “I love you’s,” they said, “Okay, Mommy, you just relax here a few minutes.” As they walked away, I heard a lot of excited, conspiratorial whispers.
A few minutes later they were back. Jake brought me a glass of water. Tara brought me my favorite flannel pajamas. I smiled at both of them, took a drink of the wat
er and put my pajamas on. They turned the lights down low, told me to relax on my bed, and started to give me a back scratch. I thought about nothing and simply enjoyed the feel of their four little hands.
Next, they massaged me—first my back, then my legs and arms. My body was sinking into the bed, and I felt totally at peace. They slowly massaged my feet and neck. I felt truly pampered. They then rubbed my temples with their thumbs and massaged my forehead. All the anxiety of the day dissipated. The messy house and to-do lists became inconsequential.
“You are the most special mom in the world,” Tara whispered as she worked.
“This is what you do for us every night, Mommy. Tonight’s your turn,” Jake said affectionately.
Were those really the same children I had spent the day with?
Just when I thought my special treatment was over, they took turns brushing my hair. I was in heaven. I relished every moment and smiled to myself, thinking, Who really needs a spotless house and folded laundry?
Tara and Jake whispered to each other, ran into the bathroom, returned with my favorite lotion and slowly massaged my feet again as the peach-scented aroma filled the room.
What did I do to deserve this? I felt more relaxed than I had in a long time. As I thought it over, I realized that rather than scream for quiet or holler that I expected better behavior, I had simply taken a moment to share my need with my children. I had asked for some special nurturing, and thankfully, they were loving enough to give it.
Marian Gormley
The Gravy Boat Rescue
Not long ago my wife and I had a dinner party for some good friends. To add a touch of elegance to the evening I brought out the good stuff—my white Royal Crown Derby china with the fine gold and blue border. When we were seated, one of the guests noticed the beat-up gravy boat I always use. “Is it an heirloom?” she asked tactfully.
I admit the piece is conspicuous; it is very old and it matches nothing else. Worst of all, it is scarred by a V-shaped notch in the lip. But that little gravy boat is much more than an heirloom to me—it is the one thing in this world I will never part with.
Chicken Soup for Every Mom's Soul Page 3