Walking to the 21st Century

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It’s the first day of summer vacation. It’s 6 a.m. and I’m wide-awake, alert and eager to get started. My sisters are all snuggled down in their bed enjoying their leisure with a long sleep-in.

Lovie who shares this room with me turns over, raises up, glances at the clock, stretches, yawns, settles her baseball cap back on her head, and smiling snuggles back down with her hands apparently clutching the bat ready to swing. All she thinks about is baseball, baseball – all summer long. And football and basketball in the fall and winter. I think she thinks she’s a boy. I think she may be a boy too. She has short curly hair, she’s really skinny and she wears pants most of the time. But mommy says she’s a girl and makes her wear dresses to school and church. Lovie gets so mad and as soon as we get home she changes into pants. Oops. Looks like she made a home run in her sleep and the bases were loaded. She just made the victory sign. I don’t know how she gets any rest with all that thrashing around she does.

This is fun. I don’t have to get up – but I want to. I kick the sheet off and flip out of the bed. Tiptoeing so as not to wake Lovie and have her growl at me, I cross the hall and peek in my older sisters’ room. Stine is lying flat on her back, arms at her side looking prim and proper – so sedate even in sleep. Charline looks so at peace from whatever it is that worries her all day. I guess being the eldest carries a lot of responsibility and that’s why Charline looks so harried. I’m glad I’m not he eldest. Stine runs back and forth to church and church related events and worries about nothing. She’s 14 and she hates boys. I don’t exactly hate them. Sometimes I think they just might be okay people sometime in the future.

Next I pussyfoot down the hall to baby sister’s room to look in on Tennie and she’s sprawled half in and half out of the bed with her bedclothes dragging the floor. She is a happy spoiled brat and Mommy and daddy are always bringing things home for her. She’s only been going to school for two years, and she says she hates it to death. I don’t understand, I like school. Lovie says she hates it too. School makes Stine and Charline frown. But last night everybody was happy. No more school for 12 long wonderful weeks. I get to spend as much time as I want at the library without worrying about homework.

Right now my olfactory sense is very happy having sniffed out the smell of bacon and eggs sizzling on the stove, and freshly brewed coffee. I rush back to my room and slip into my shorts and blouse, then sneak real quietly into the kitchen and quick hug mommy around the waist. She almost spills the coffee.

“Girl, haven’t I told you to stop sneaking up on people.” She laughs. And my heart stops thumping.

“Can I have some coffee, please?” I venture.

“May I?” She says.

“May you what?"

She laughs again and insists I’m too young for coffee and gives me a glass of orange juice instead. It’s all right. I like orange juice. Maybe next year when I’m 13, I’ll be old enough for coffee but right now it’s fun to be up in the early morning just chatting with Mommy while everybody else is asleep. This is our “quality time”. She gives me some bacon and eggs and we talk. Then I wash the dishes while she makes her lunch. She gets her purse and I carry her lunch, and then – here’s the best part – I get to walk Mommy to work.

You see Mommy works about six blocks from where we live. I love this walk in the cool of a summer morning. Cars are whizzing by, birds are twittering in the trees, and Mommy and I are walking hand in hand swinging our arms just enjoying the soft summer breeze, and reveling in each other’s company. I feel like a grownup, so privileged to be privy to some of Mommy’s deepest thoughts. Well maybe not quite so deep. Sometimes she fusses about my young sisters, other times she worries about my elder sisters and still other times she has daddy on her mind and what she sees as his drinking problem. Once in a while she says I’m no problem at all, and she wishes all her daughters were like me. I go thumbs down on that because I’m 12 years old, and I’m supposed to be worrisome too. Aren’t I? Well it really doesn’t matter as it’s fun to skip along next to mommy with her hip steady bumping me. She switches, you know. She has a really neat shape with a wee tiny waist, with her chest poking out just so and hips that sways when she walks. She has dark auburn hair that she wears in a French Roll when she goes to church and work but let flow free to her shoulders when she and daddy goes on a date. Imagine Mommy and Daddy going on a date, and they’re so old.

Sometimes when we’re walking along, I talk about things that worry me like: Will I be as pretty as she is when I grow up? Will boys like me? When can I wear lipstick and stocking? When can I wear a bra? Sometimes she’ll stop walking and tilt my chin up and say very seriously. “You are a very pretty you right now, and no you won’t look like me when you grow up, you’re going to look like you; and yes boys will like you, and as soon as you get something on your chest.” Then she’d laughs her happy pleased with life laugh. And I laugh too. There’s nothing in the world quite as much fun as walking with mommy in the early morning and her assuring me that I am special in my own unique way. I flip over backwards. I get so excited.

This particular morning mommy talked about “the birds and the bees” as I skipped along humming little snatches of a popular melody. Mommy said. “Are you listening, girl?”

“Unhuh.” I said stooping to pick up a rock, then dashing off to chase a butterfly. “Mom,” I queried on returning. “What about moths and butterflies?”

“So you were listening. It’s the same thing.” She said ruffling my hair. Shuffling my feet. I said. “I always listen to you. I just don’t need all the yucky stuff to happen to me. I’m never going to have any kids anyway.”

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Now decades have passed since that memorable early morning walk-talk when Mom gave me a nickel just before we parted, and I somersaulted, skipped, ran, and leaped my way home happy in the knowledge that it was summer vacation and I could read as many books as I wanted to, and that I didn’t have to have any kids if I didn’t want to.

However, somehow between then and now, I obviously changed my mind and has four lovely children, and three of them presented me with 12 grandchildren in total. I discovered that Lovie is actually a female as she has six boys and one girl, and males can’t pull that trick. I’m still walking with Mom.

The scenario is different. It is a little later in summer though and I still rise at 6 a.m. when the house is cool and quiet. One daughter is still with me but she sleeps late. I peep in her room, and she’s asleep hugging a giant pillow she asked Santa to bring her for Christmas. Across the hall is my eldest grandchild barely visible with all those stuffed animals in her bed. I blow her a kiss on the air. Sylvia sticks her head out her room saying ssh, and I lightly toss her a kiss, and she frowns and returns to her bed. I slip lightly down the stairs still wearing (as in my childhood) shorts, a white blouse and white running shoes.

Now I have 2 & ½ miles to go for my walkie-talkie session with Mom. No I haven’t kept it up over these many decades, I’ve just picked it back up lately because – you see – Mommy almost came to her journey’s end and had to undergo cardiac bypass surgery. And I, in spite of my light meat, fruit, vegetable, and legume diet, have cholesterolemia with my blood cholesterol being as high as 300. That’s pathological. I want to live. So I’m walking for my life. And if Mom’s surgery is to pay off with rich dividends, then she too must walk for her life. And I’m here to see that she does since she is willing but don’t like to walk alone. Dad died a number of years ago.

It only takes three-quarters of an hour to get from my house to Mom’s front door. It used to take just a minute to go from my room to hugging her around the waist in the kitchen. Now there is no smell of coffee brewing or eggs and bacon sizzling on the stove. Mom can’t eat those things anymore. I come in while she gets her keys and cane. Both of us are considerably larger than we were way back when I didn’t wear a bra. Mom is 60 pounds and I’m 20 pounds overweight. So you know she’s lost that teeny tiny waist, and I’ve filled out considerably. Still Mom is a beautiful woman whom I didn’t grow up to look like. Her hair is still long and luxurious but the dark auburn turned black over the years, and now she is mostly grey as I am. We talk about this as she eases down the steps and off her porch. As we start down the street she reminds me how I used to prance off and leave her, and like a puppy on a lease come racing back in a few seconds. She tells me how much she loved our early morning rambles. And I’m ecstatic realizing she got as much pleasure out of our walks as I did. Her happy laugh has not changed as she still sounds like she’s just overjoyed to be alive. We stroll along at a sedate pace because at 79 Mom’s stride is not what it used to be, and I have learned to be prim and proper like Ernestine, and to worry like Charline. We talk now about my worries, which have come a long way since I wondered about “boys liking me”. I laughingly tell Mom they liked me too well, that I have no serious regrets, but I just wish I’d done things a little differently. She says, “Don’t we all”. Sometimes as we walk, we are silent, not needing to fill every moment with conversation.

Mother’s neighborhood is in the heart of Greater Cleveland but it’s a much better neighborhood than East Cleveland where I live. Properties are well kept; yards are so beautiful with flowers blooming of every variety. The yards seem to be professionally landscaped and I never tire of looking.

Mom’s walk for the day is one-half mile and mine is 5 & ½ miles the three days a week I walk with her and the rest of the week 3 miles a day. As we walk, I don’t rush Mom. We’re both retired, we have all the time in the world and we can stroll at our leisure since right now, mom can’t strut anymore, and it doesn’t come natural to me anymore. But that’s all right as we mean to stroll our way into the 2lst Century leaving high cholesterol, heart disease and obesity behind. Then in the year 2018, God willing, all my sisters and I are going to stroll right on over to Mom’s house for the biggest celebration of our lives – Mom’s 100th birthday.

The End

Estella Wicks

© May, 1980