Mother May I

She was a brunette Barbie Doll, all five foot two and one hundred and five pounds of her, but she had ways about her that would scare the devil out of her four children. She passed in December of 2019, before the onset of the Covid pandemic, which looking back was a good thing, she was eighty-eight and living a great life in an old folks home, having lost dad ten years earlier.

Math Class

Born in either Baton Rouge or New Orleans, the story differed as she aged, mom was a maths whizz, and my two older siblings were easy to raise, but my younger brother Matt and I, not so much. I was two years older than Matt, though mom insisted, and you can’t make this shit up, I was two years ‘lacking’ eight days older, and to this day I’ll never forget the preciseness of this. She introduced us to baseball cards before we were school-aged, not because she liked baseball, but we did and she taught us how to figure out Earned Run Average, Batting Average, and several other math analyses before we hit first grade, yep, that was mom. We call my younger brother Rain Man even still today.

Fire Safety

By the time I was seven, Matt and I had seen dad lighting matches, which intrigued us, actually, it fascinated us. Soon we had moved into a brand new home and the rest of the neighborhood was still being built, so one early morning we gathered a few little twigs and started our first little fire on the front curb. We became quite adept at being junior arsonists and of course, mom caught us red-handed. She warned us to knock it off or there would be consequences, but we didn’t listen and didn’t know what the word consequences even meant, we would find out soon enough.

She caught us again less than a week later, the same spot, we weren’t that bright. Frustrated she arranged a meeting for us with the local fire chief, and that was a meeting I won’t soon, or for that matter, ever forget. She drove us over in the LTD station wagon and as we strolled in, the fireman manning the front desk told us to take a seat, but this firehouse only had big people's chairs, so Matt and I sat together swinging our little legs that couldn’t touch the ground. Mom was whisked away into a back room and we were ordered to stay, and being good puppies, at least that day, we did as ordered.

What seemed like a lifetime later to a seven and five-year-old, mom came out the same door with the fire chief in tow, uh oh was all I could think. He herded the two of us into his office and never got graphic but scolded us good and proper, then mom came back in and he let us play on the fire engine, it was a blast. In the end, he gave us stick-on badges and we wore them proudly, and this is when I’d like to say this story ends, but nah, as I said, Matt and I weren’t easily corralled.

That weekend, we two junior firemen went across the street to a house that was still being built, grabbed some odds and ends, and had a nice Indian fire blazing until we noticed both parents in their robes and slippers standing behind us, their faces wrinkled with disgust. Dad made us put out the fire and we thought the belt was coming to meet our behinds next, but instead, mom taught us real fire safety.

She took us into the marbled floor, the front entrance of our home, and had us sit next to her, she calmly lit a match and took our index fingers and ran them over the lit match, hurt like a son of a bitch, but we quit lighting fires, well at least not at home. I have a fire pit out in my backyard now and I can’t help but think of her every time I light that sucker up, she was brilliant, in a devious sort of way. She denied she did this until she was eighty plus and seemed embarrassed she did it, but we laughed about it, God I miss her.

Back to School

It was 1968 and my dad was playing basketball with my uncle and a few friends when he took a nasty spill, which led to the discovery he had Multiple Sclerosis and life changed quickly. As a stay at home mom, she needed to get back to work, we didn’t know how long dad would be able to earn an income, so she enlisted the help of her mom, our Nana, to become our full-time child care specialist and she went to nursing school.

The local Junior College had just opened and she was accepted to the first-ever Nursing School, we didn’t see her much during those days, Nana had become mom, and mom became a student, but not just any student, two long years later she was the Valedictorian of that first class of nurses. She was hired immediately at Hoag Hospital in the ICU/CCU unit and worked there for many years. Once again, you can’t make this shit up, Nurse Dies, our mother, worked every shift with Nurse Deth and if that didn’t freak out the patient and their families, I don’t know what could. Yet mom had taught us the dedication and determination needed to be successful and she was, fifteen years later she was the Head Nurse at Costa Mesa Hospital. We watched and learned, even when she wasn’t around she was still teaching us.

Parenting

I was not a seasoned father when I had my first child, had never changed a diaper or even held a newborn, so naturally I peppered my mother with a boatload of questions and then patterned my parenting style after her. My first attempt a changing a diaper I’m sure embarrassed her to no end as it was a cluster fuck.

My ex was a trooper, she had to birth Katey by cesarean and of course, her body took a beating. She still got up and breastfed her with every moan and cry from Katey and had changed every diaper, whether I was there or not, trust issues, probably, or she’d just seen me drop a lot of crap around the house and figured she didn’t want me to drop our firstborn.

Two weeks in, it was a Sunday morning, and I heard Katey crying so decided this was the day. My mom and ex had shown me numerous times so I figured I had this one locked up, and although I’ve always been good at math, this particular problem escaped me. As I picked up my startled two-week-old daughter she at first was surprised and then started smiling, but she had plans for me.

We had set up a changing table in her bedroom, and above the changing station were two shelves stocked with enough product to change fifty babies, there were powders, baby wipes, an assortment of ointments, cloth diapers and a bowl of safety pins. I sat my smiling, cooing baby on the table and went to work. I had wiped her little booty, yuck, thrown her spiked diaper in the baby diaper hamper, and was applying the fresh diaper when Katey tested me with another runny baby poop. It caught me by surprise, I mean really by surprise.

I threw up my hands to dodge the projectile poop, hit the shelves knocking them off, covered Katey with my body, and powder and stuff were flying everywhere. The ex beat a hasty path down the hallway to find us both crying and her changing station in utter chaos. She scolded me, fixed everything, and forbid me to try again.

Mom heard my story and calmly explained in detail how to do this chore, over and over, and finally, I tried again and was successful. Since then, we had four kids and I have two grandsons, I became quite proficient, but without my mom's help I was a sinking ship, ironic after all the time she’d spent with me she still had the patience to teach me, and by now I’ve changed literally thousands, but that first one still lives in infamy.

Spare the Rod

Mom was not a believer in sparing the rod, nor spoiling the child, she smacked Matt and I with whatever was handy, wooden spoons, brooms, belts, whatever she could grab, we got it. Before she started nursing she generally just sent us to our room with the old saying “wait ‘til your father gets home” and I always felt for the old man. He’d come home from work, find out what we did, have a quick drink, and march up the stairs. Matt and I prayed a lot for the fat belt because the skinny one hurt more, but neither felt good on our bottom side.

I’ve never blamed either of them for spanking us, we deserved it, usually more than we got caught. The worst was getting smacked around by the nuns at our Catholic Elementary School and then they called the folks and we usually got a double whooping.

On one particular weekend, I was five, Nana watched us as my parents took a much-needed vacation. I was out front the entire weekend trying to throw a basketball in the hoop, but the other three were raising hell, Beelzebub even showed up, and when the folks got home we all got the belt.

Nana later mentioned I was the only one that behaved, oops, and the folks felt horrible, especially my mom, but I figured I’d gotten away with a few things so I really didn’t mind. My kids got just the hand but there were days I’m glad I didn’t have a handgun, now I know why spanking was such a useful tool. My kids thanked me as well, sparing the rod never took in our family.

My mom was a gem, old school, poor as a child could be, but happy, and she made a wonderful life for us all. I never cried when mom passed and I have never figured this out. She had once told me as we get older we must “run out of tears”, I don’t know if she’s correct, but I never doubt her.

All the other siblings had titles, Rob was the oldest, Kittie, the only girl, and Matt the baby, but mom gave me one, her favorite. I will think about my lack of tears forever but I feel we were so close we left nothing unsaid, and for now, I am sticking with that.