Wreaths and garlands

 

My house has one outward decoration for the passing world to see; I made the eucalyptus wreath for the front door, clipping pliable branches from our huge trees out front. The wreath is small. It's always too small, but it's flush. The stems I chose for its construction were supple, so they hadn't turned a wizened brown but still had a vibrant burgundy hue. Unfortunately, they were also short. The newer leaves are tinged with rose, so the wreath is sagey green and shades of red - softened Christmas colors.

I make the wreath, because it reminds me of my parents and of Tennessee. My parents rolled wreaths to make a living in the winter, and Dad also made one huge briar or grapevine wreath to hang above our own front porch for Christmas. He strung it with green lights, and our neighbors across the creek would tell us how brightly it shone through the trees along the bank and across Spann Road.

Dad's wreath was huge, impressive. Mine is small and fragrant. But they're connected. I'm keeping the ritual, you see. I'm honoring the Ghost of Christmas Past.

Just as when I strung popcorn on a long stretch of thread last week. I was feeling down, bluesy, but the act of pushing the needle through the stiff kernels and then of pushing them down into place was peaceful and reminded me of my mother. I remember her patience in teaching me to string the popcorn as a child, and this garland of popcorn links me to her and to her calm spirit. And now it's my turn to supervise my children as they help me finish the garland one string at a time (it's still not done). I told my husband that I thought the puffy white garland looked surprisingly elegant. "That's a stretch," he responded. Well, he's not the one putting all the work in, is he? Anyway, it does look a tad more elegant than the red and green construction paper garlands my kids and I usually make.

Dad Steps on one and Mom Beheads another (anniversary repost of the week)

While pulling weeds with my eldest girl in the yard this morning I was reminded of a summer in my childhood when my siblings and I were supposed to be helping our lovely mother in the vegetable garden. We were lazin' about, of course, and while we were thus engaged, Mama encountered something that gave her a real fright. But, of course, that story cannot be told without setting down first the very scary incident of Dad's encounter with a similar cold-blooded creature.

This was a story I always wanted to tell, and I think I did it justice.


I will embrace this summer, destined to be terrible like any Arizona summer, by indulging in summer memories from the past. Those that are foremost in my mind at the moment involve, of all things, snakes.

My brother Nate and I used to sneak up on the garden variety to touch their slippery skins until they ejected their forked tongues at us. Our brave lab Reuben attacked even the venomous kind, rattlesnakes and copperheads, with vigor in the cornfield and woods - barking, circling and lunging. Twice he was bitten, and he would forever have the bare patches of fur as proof of battle.

The scariest encounter happened early one summer. We kids were swimming in the creek in the afternoon. There was a massive old tree which bent its limbs over the water. From one sturdy limb Dad had hung an old barge rope. When we weren't taking turns using it to launch ourselves into the water, we were having dog paddle races in the gentle current or adding rocks to the dam we'd built to deepen our swimming hole.

My parents came home early that day. We saw the car cross the culvert, barreling toward home. This was the first unusual incident, for Mom and Dad often stopped the car at the creek, especially if we kids were there, and they'd lie down in the shallows to cool off after a hot sweaty day in the woods.

We kids abandoned the cool water, jumping the spring as we followed the creek path before climbing to the road and dripping a trail down the dirt lane. As we rounded the corner by the mailbox, we were surprised to see our parents still by the car. And Dad was in the passenger seat. This was a new alarm; Mom never drove. That and the fact that Dad's face was a shade we'd never seen before as he leaned his head against the open car door told us something was very wrong. We all four ran to his side, our words and our limbs becoming tangled. He responded to this onslaught by asking us weakly to back up and give him space.

It was Mom who said in a strained voice, "Your dad was bitten by a copperhead."

The inevitable questions erupted from us in panic. "Is Dad going to die? Why isn't Dad at the hospital?"

Mom's big brown eyes were alarming in size, the rest of her face pinched by stress. Dad finally cut through the tears and mounting fear by saying in a firm if weakened voice, "I'm not going to die. Help me inside the house."

Once inside Dad cut the boot off his foot. There was nothing else to do; the foot was swollen to twice its size. We kids watched in anxious fascination as Dad laboriously pushed the sock down, his face tight with pain. When he finally collapsed against the couch, sweating from the effort, the foot was revealed to us: mottled with various shades of red and blue that had spread up his leg.

It was my brother Nate who spotted the fang marks. "Look!" he cried, pointing to the top of the foot. "I found where it got you, Dad!"

We all bent over the two tiny white marks.

"That's it, alright," said Dad. "Now someone turn down that air conditioner. I'm burning up."

That night I woke up to the sound of someone being sick in the bathroom. We kids straggled out to the living room where we found Dad sweating and miserable by the air conditioner. Mom was urging him to drink a tall glass of water, her cure for everything.

"Kids, go back to bed. There's nothing you can do," said Dad in a low voice.

But we didn't, because we didn't fully trust Dad's assurances that he wasn't going to die. He was shaking and sweating badly; we had to keep watch over him.

For two grueling days my dad suffered from recurring fever and vomiting induced by the venom. On the third morning he got ready for work despite Mom's objections. It took quite a lot of duck tape to secure his work boot to his swollen foot that morning. Every day he had to rewrap the shoe as he prepared for the woods, but he recovered as he said he would.

We learned the story by and by. As I have said my parents worked in the woods for a living. While they hunted for valuable roots to dig, Dad always walked ahead of our mother. This time he stepped over a large decaying log, breaking his own rule about looking before proceeding. The prick on his foot was virtually instantaneous. Luckily, Dad recognized the copperhead pattern on the snake's back as it slithered away, but the burning heat that surged through his foot quickly spread up his leg even as he stood in a nearby creek to gain relief from the painful sensation.

Dad knew copperheads are rarely fatal, so he resisted Mom's urgent demands that they go straight to a hospital. But we prayed, too, and prayer is powerful.

****************************

Dad's experience explains the enormity of my mother's reaction to her own confrontation with a slithering reptile. The image of Dad stepping over the log and saying, "Honey, I think I just got bit," and his subsequent misery were no doubt still fresh as Mom knelt in our family garden later that summer, tending the bean plants and unaware that she had company.

I feel some guilt in the telling of this episode, for I remember our dad adjuring my siblings and I to help her before he left to work a neighbor's farm.

We kids were being particularly unproductive, listening to music and rocking on the couch or the floor in a general state of ennui when Mom burst open our front door and said, "Oh, s--t! There's a copperhead in the garden!"

All four of us froze in horror, not because of the presence of a snake in the garden, but because of the word which had escaped our virtuous mother's lips. It was Vinca who finally stuttered, "Wha-waa-what did you say?"

Mom omitted the word and cut straight to the point before adding in wide-eyed frenzy, "I need something...anything! I've got to kill it!"

It was very unfortunate that Mom spotted the rifle on the living room shelf. She ran out of the house with it and the ammunition before we could prevent her. Nate was close on her heels, however, urging her to let him shoot it (he was a good shot and had actually handled it before).

"Stand back, all of you!" she ordered.

After promptly doing so, we kids watched as our mother blasted not only the bean plants, but the corn and tomatoes as well. Upon inspection, the snake was found to be unscathed.

Having depleted the sparse ammunition, Mom yelled desperately, "Get me rocks! Bring me rocks! I need something to throw at it!"

My sister Annie dragged an enormous rock from the flower bed wall, laughing and winking at me and Nate as she lugged it between her legs. Our mother, still powered by adrenaline, lifted the considerable weight over her head and hurled it like She-Woman in the general direction of the bean plants.

But the snake, not surprisingly, survived the bombardment of stones, though it had lost much of its cover. Our flattened garden was a sad testimony to the presence of the iniquitous reptile that had, despite the assault, hardly moved from its original position. Mom decided the time had come for close combat. She marched to the side of the house, grabbed the hoe propped there and returned to the very place where she had first discovered the copperhead while kneeling in its proximity. She then did what she should have done at the first by quickly and precisely chopping off its head.

By the time Dad returned home that evening, our mother was her usual calm and ladylike self, and we kids were impatient to relate the story of our adventure. We met him at the car, and Mom stood behind us with folded arms as we all spoke at once. Somewhere in the telling, one of us burst out with, "And Mama said a bad word. She said the s-word!"

"I did not," Mom spoke firmly.

"But, Mom, you did!" said Nate. "When you came in the house."

"I would never say that word." Her voice was very quiet, and her large eyes were narrowed. We didn't dare argue with her.

At least not until she went back into the house. Then we all turned to Dad and began whispering, "She said it, Daddy. She really did."

Dad was skinning the miscreant snake in the driveway. He looked up, and his pale green eyes were bright with amusement when he said, "I believe you. But it's our secret, okay? Don't make your Mama angry."

It's strange that our mother's use of a bad word should capture our imaginations more than the image of her firing a rifle into the bean plants. I can only say it is a testament to her beautiful manners, and I need not add, I have never heard her say it since.

The Cobbler and the Cobbler Pan (anniversary repost)

I just made a Memorial Day blackberry cobbler. My husband came home with a whole case of blackberries from the Farmer's market, and as I washed each pintful and spread them out to drain on a kitchen cloth, I was having flashbacks to the summers of my childhood - pounds of blackberries piled in milk jug pails!

I made the cobbler in such a way as to make my Mama proud, I hope. The pastry was thick, the blackberry filling deep - no lemon zest, just a hint of cinnamon. It was delicious. Still, I can't believe it held anything to Mama's Tennessee blackberry cobblers. I told my friends that the preparation of her cobblers was like witchcraft - stirring hot, bubbling juices for what seemed like hours in a cauldron-like pan on the stove...well, despite the grueling nature of its preparation, I'd like to have it again if I could. At any rate, this post melds two earlier ones about that tremendous cobbler and about the very special pan that held it every summer.

The Cobbler

Where I grew up in Tennessee, wild blackberries grew in abundance. They were plumpest and juiciest in late July and August, fully ripened with the heat and the humidity. My parents, siblings and I would hike down the long lane from our little house and climb a gate into Mr. Spann's field. There in a hollow shaded by trees, the blackberry bushes formed a beautiful tangle of leaves, berries and thorns. For our equipment we had milk jugs with the tops cut off and our own two hands.

My sister Vinca was an expert at not getting pricked with the thorns as she harvested the deep purple berries. Annie and I kept up a chorus of "ouch!" the whole time. My berry-picking form was not the best in other ways, too, for I would obsessively pluck practically all the berries from a bush, no matter their size or degree of ripeness. When Dad glanced my way, he'd say, "Whoa, Hoo-doo! Leave some for the birds."

He should have added, "And some for the pail!" because many berries got eaten before they landed in our humble milk-jug pails, our fingers and mouths stained purple with the evidence. But those lucky ones that made it back down the lane to home were destined for mom's blackberry cobbler.

To this day I have yet to find anything that could compare with my mom's blackberry cobbler. It was the culinary equivalent of heaven, but the preparation, at least to us kids, was brutal. We had to take turns stirring the blackberry, sugar and cornstarch mixture over the hot stove until it had practically formed a jam. Mom would come in to inspect every few minutes, lifting the spoon from the bubbling mixture and shaking her head tersely in answer to our pleading eyes.

When she finally decided it was ready, the mixture was poured into the dough-lined cobbler pan (a pan with a slightly rounded bottom that was so large we kids used it to go sledding on the rare occasion we got snow). After what seemed like an eternity, it emerged from the oven, steaming from beneath its thick golden layer of homemade pastry. I can still see it resting on the grates of our old wood-burning stove in the living room, Mama slicing it open with a thick knife as steam rose and the smell of it bloomed in our home. We always ate the first slice warm, very warm - cooled only enough to prevent the burning of our mouths with its delicious purple filling. The taste and smell of it is something I can still conjure up in my mind and something, too, which will always embody the bountiful summers of my childhood.

I won't have that cobbler again, I imagine, but it is still my favorite dish in the world. I don't have my mom's talent with pastry dough and, sadly, I never attempted to learn it growing up. And the last time I had wild blackberries was the final summer I spent with my parents in Tennessee. My siblings had all journeyed away from our home, and it was just my dad and me braving the humidity and thorns to pluck memories from the blackberry bush.

But here's my summer wish for you, my friends, wherever you may be: I hope you are lucky enough to find or make for yourself your own perfect berry cobbler. And may you share your bounty with family and friends.
 
 
Ode to the Cobbler Pan

While driving with my family to Christmas Eve Mass today, I was admiring the clear skies and clear ground and the sunshine of this desert valley town. Indeed, this is my first year living here that the persistent sunshine around the holidays has not irked me as ill-placed winter carols jingle from my car stereo. Though we've gotten a little rain lately and the sky has not been its usual bright self, today I truly thought to myself, "Ah, boy, this is Christmas! Warm. No snow on the ground. Clear and beautiful."

Strange. I never thought a southern gal like me would let her roots sink in this clay soil. But here I am in Arizona, and shockingly I'm finding I'm beginning to yearn for my own southwest ranch home, maybe some horses and a back porch that abuts BLM land. And I wouldn't mind more Christmases spent beneath a clear sky and full sunshine.

Still...a tune such as White Christmas never fails to call me warmly back to that traditional idea of a snowy cold Christmas with mittens on my hands and furry boots for my feet and my kids and dogs prancing through the fresh powder on the lawn...oh, and a good long slide in a sled down the nearest big hill.

I never had a real sled. In Tennessee, the opportunities to go pell-mell down a hill on such a contraption weren't often or good enough to warrant the investment. But when the snow came and it stuck, you can bet my siblings and I were rooting around for something, anything that would give us the speed we craved in flying down the big hill in the field.


Ode to the cobbler pan!


Whose cobbler pan this is, I think I know


Mom will not mind if we use it though


To send our bottoms racing down the hill


And hitting a cornstalk, take an awesome spill


Which our siblings will see and laugh about


Til we head home...cold, worn-out


The pan was shiny aluminum, rounded on the bottom and deep with a small lip around the rim. It had been given to my parents in a set for a wedding day gift, I believe. I don't know who first thought of using that old aluminum pan for a sled. Maybe Mama suggested it, giggling at the idea of our little bottoms stuck into the pan in which she baked the deepest, purplest, most scrumptious blackberry cobblers one could ever hope to experience. Or maybe it was Annie, who always was so very skinny and was able to fit into it years after she should have outgrown it. But maybe it was destiny...for us four kids and for the pan.

I can remember many an occasion, heading across a white field toward the long slope that came down between the lines of trees with one of my siblings swinging the cobbler pan in their hands. We usually had hubcaps, too, but the bond there was never strong. We didn't feel love for those hubcaps, no loyalty for their many years of faithful snow-day service. They were just something we picked up as extras along the way. But the pan? We hunted it down on a packed snowy day, pulling it with clatters and clunks from beneath a pile of other pots and pans in the kitchen, dragging it out into daylight after its months of hibernation post-blackberry season.

On the hill we kids would spend a good deal of time clearing our sledding paths of pebbles and broken cornstalks from the summer's harvest. It was cold, hard work. Good exercise, too, and we loved it even if we did have to stop and breath the life back into our fingers which were adorned only in some of Dad's old socks.

With cleared paths at last, we'd balance the pan and a hubcap at the top of that hill - two of us at a time, and two behind ready to give a push whether requested or not. If you were the one in the pan, you held onto that tiny lip of metal around the rim as you teetered near the launching point, then you lifted your legs and got a shove from behind. Down you went, spinning all the way with the world a blur of barking dogs and laughing siblings, and all the while you're thinking, I hope I don't go into that gulch at the bottom or biff it hard on a cornstalk. You knew you'd get a few colorful bruises if you did. But if you were still intact, pan and kid, when you stopped spinning and slowly skidded to a stop at the bottom of the hill, you laughed in victory before hauling the pan back up the hill to the sibling waiting for their turn in it.

We'd take turn after turn speeding in the pan until our hands, noses and bottoms were thoroughly frozen. Then we'd head home, satisfied as only kids can be in their puerile pursuits of adventure, with the smoke curling above that little square house serving as a beacon to call us to a warm harbor. At the front porch we'd quickly stamp our shoes on the steps, and going in, we'd dump the cobbler pan on the ground and peel off our wet jackets and Dad's old socks by the front door, eager to reach the wood-burning stove and hold our numb hands above its hot surface.

A snowy day did come when none of us kids could fit into the cobbler pan, and it would have been embarrassing to even attempt it. Our ingenuity did not fail us, though. The hubcaps could still be used, and there was some old linoleum that Mom had torn up from the living room floor. Nate and I used it, and its slick surface worked well - until it shredded on the way down the hill, leaving nothing but a scrap beneath our bums. Because you see, no sled or other downhill transport could ever be as durable as that cobbler pan. And we treated the poor thing roughly; each good hard snowfall, it got a few more dents in its bottom. And yet come summer it was again receiving and heating Mom's beautiful cobbler.

This Christmas, I wish I had that cobbler pan to hold in my hands again and marvel at the mere fact that there used to be a time when I could comfortably fit my rear end into it while racing flat-out down a slope. Then I'd like to hang it on the wall in my kitchen.

My friends might say, "Hillary, why do you keep that old pan hanging there?"

And I'd look up proudly and get a little misty-eyed as I replied, "There was a big hill in the field where I grew up. It'd snow sometimes, and that pan was just right...."

Pie Pastry - Bah! (anniversary repost)

I'm taking this opportunity to say that these pies, the ones in this story that caused me such grief, turned out to be some of the best Thanksgiving pies I ever made.

The past two days I've been in a hot place with pie pastry...and I don't mean the kitchen.

Yesterday it was bad, very bad. Daniel, my baby, was crying from the playpen and I was wrestling with the devil dough on the counter, trying for the love of heaven to get it to roll out smoothly. Finally, as Daniel continued to fuss ever more loudly, and the cold pastry cracked and split beneath my frustrated hands, I sang out maniacally for my husband to, "COME HOME! Just...COME...home! Get yourself HOME...RIGHT NOOOOW!"

The kids were outside, and they came to the door, "Where's Papa? Is he home?" Then they saw my wild eyes, the pastry stuck to the rolling pin, and the flour monsoon in the kitchen and retreated, giggling and keeping a good distance.

By the time Matthew got home, it was all over. The pies, for better or for worse, were in the oven. And they weren't even the Thanksgiving pies. They were my test dummies for the real pies.

I was trying this new pastry recipe that's called Foolproof Pie Pastry. I wanted to compare it with my usual nightmare butter dough - that demon dough that tastes like heaven but gives you hell to roll it out. Well, this foolproof recipe called for part butter/part shortening and, of all things, vodka! You use the vodka in place of part of the water - makes the dough moist so you can smooth it out into a perfect geometric circle, but then the alcohol evaporates in the oven and voila! Flaky yet tender pie dough.

Well, that recipe ain't foolproof, and I'm the fool that proved it.

Because as I was rolling it out, I was still muttering at it and insulting it and threatening all kinds of demises for it that didn't involve a sweet filling and a nice warm visit to the oven. Yes, yes...it was technically easier than the butter pastry, but the dang dough still flaked and chipped, cracked and ripped. Stupid thing!

In light of the foolproof recipe defeat, I began looking for excuses: It's this dang desert climate - too dry! I said. I don't have a food processor like all my friends! I whined. My kitchen's too small! I cried.

But then I thought I knew the problem: I hadn't cut the butter small enough with the pastry cutter. I'd rectify it, and the dough for my pies would be perfect. Just perfect, I vowed.

Today was another day. I combined the ingredients, cut the butter just so, and tried to flatten them gently into the perfect "four-inch diameter" discs the recipe calls for before I placed them in the fridge to cool. An hour or so later I drew them out, and I knew with my first glance the battle would be the same as the day before. And if I wasn't careful, this time the pastry would win.

The mumblings began anew as I blanketed the dough with parchment paper, caressed the dough with floured fingers, and did my best to placate the dough with the careful push-push of the rolling pin. But, no - NO! The stupid thing couldn't be reasoned with, and I had to take it and literally plop it off the parchment into its pie pan, shoving tattered bits and pieces into the holes that mocked me. I didn't want to overwork it. Heaven help me, I know the bitter revenge of overworked dough.

Thank God Matthew was home today. Still the kids tried to bug me during the process, and many times I cried out in desperation, "Don't come in here! Don't talk to me! Can't you see I'm battling with pie dough?"

Berto commiserated.

"Wow, Mama. That does look hard!" he said, as I huffed and puffed over the monster I had created. "It is hard!" I wailed. "It's the hardest thing in the world! And it's stressful, so stressful..."

"Don't encourage her!" Matthew said sharply, bouncing Daniel in his arms. "Nobody encourage Mama in her tirade!"

After a litany of sighs and grunts, I did finally get the fresh pies in the oven, laying the top crust on in chunks. But, hey, the dough wasn't overworked (I think), and I covered its many imperfections with a liberal sprinkling of cinnamon and sugar. I also remembered to put all the ingredients in the filling. Too bad I baked them at the wrong temperature, though. Nothing like flaky crust and undercooked fruit in a Thanksgiving pie!

Why does she bother? you ask. Don't they have prepared pie crust in the grocery store? you say. Okay, so they do, but I want to be the Pie Lady, the Pastry Queen. I want my sons to propose to their girlfriends someday on bent knee, and say, "Before I give you the ring, there's something you should know: my mom makes the best pie. Just the best. Yours can never compare. Not ever. And mom says you can't have the recipe. But I love you anyway, and we'll go to my parents' for Thanksgiving."

Alright, so that's not right of me. Maybe that's why every time I go to make a pie, I find myself eating the humble variety. But I still want a solid pastry recipe and technique to pass down to my daughters. My mom made the best pies, you see, and I want to, too. This Thanksgiving, I'm just hoping they're decent.


More food adventures in Holiday Tales of Horror - Stuffed Couches and Stolen Chocolates

I Forgot to Say I Love You, Mama Darlin'

With every child Matthew and I have added to our family, my respect for my mother has grown exponentially.

Mama Darlin' and her four critters, as she'd call us

Dad tells a story from when he was working for a power line company in these western United States, days when he worked "light to light", leaving at dawn to work on the large structures that spread across the prairies and coming home after most of us kids had been put to bed. During his lunch break one day, he was driving through the town. As he slowed at a street light, he saw a woman crossing the street with a child holding her hand, a baby in her arms, another child gripping her pant leg and a fourth little one holding onto a sibling's hand. Dad had the instinctive thought, "Poor woman!", but as she crossed in front of him, he realized with a shock that it was his own wife and his children.

My mother isn't just extraordinary because she at one time herded children safely with her wherever she went. She's an incredible woman, because she told my dad she wanted no offspring when they first met and yet when she and Dad built their family, she became known to her children as "Saint Mommy" for her sweet, selfless spirit and her gentle words and touch. She's amazing, because as a teenager most thought of her as a hothouse flower, beautiful but not inclined toward outdoor adventures. Yet when we moved to the South, she would spend years of her life hiking through the hills and hollows of Middle Tennessee in order to help provide for the family. She knelt in the dirt to dig valuable roots (ginseng, goldenseal) and rolled grapevine and briar wreaths against her stomach beneath the hardwood trees. She wore flannel as if it were the only natural choice for a lovely woman and carried hand sewn jean sacks with her cold lunch and water bottle slung across her body. What's remarkable is that she enjoyed the experience, relishing not only the exercise and being in nature but the time spent with her husband.

I knew as a child that my mom was beautiful, that she was kind and optimistic. But I must admit I did not realize how resilient she was, how determined, how intelligent, how centered she was until I started to bushwhack my way through life with my own little ones in tow. With each baby I welcomed into my arms and life, the horizon of my understanding expanded until it richly glowed with revelations about motherhood and about Mama Darlin's saintlike attributes.

I have a memory to share. It is not what you would expect, but it is a powerful memory about a Mother's Day a long time ago. First let me say that I do remember occasions when I made cards and paper flowers for Mama at school. I remember times when Annie and Vinca prepared Mama a humble breakfast, and Nate and I clumsily took it to her. There were years when we plucked a profusion of tiger lilys from the creek bank to bring her. I can also still see the sewing basket with roses on the fabric that I insisted on getting her for a gift one year despite the fact that she rarely found time to sew, saving the jean sacks for work. But the memory that is most powerful is also sad, and it recalls a time when we kids neglected to show our mother how much we loved and appreciated her.

That Mother's Day was not what it should have been from the beginning. Our family was struggling financially, and we all were suffering from malaise because of the stress and uncertainty. Dad left early that Sunday to work in the fields of a neighbor, Mr. Wellins, in order to bring in more money. The house was quiet.

We kids kept mostly to our rooms. I laid on the floor in Annie's and my bedroom with sheets of paper spread around me, trying half-heartedly to write a poem for my mother or at least draw a picture. As I balled up rejected attempts at a gift and threw them into the corner, I should have realized I was already way behind the game. Still, being late with a gift is a far better thing than giving none at all, especially when the gift is meant for the most important woman in the world.

The next afternoon I remember vividly, painfully clear. We kids got off the bus to begin a hot, dusty walk down the lane toward home, and Dad pulled up in the car. We were surprised to see him but grateful to have a ride and to skip the exercise. The stern expression on our dad's face should have warned us that something was amiss, but we climbed in with barely a word of greeting and slumped into our respective places on the worn vinyl.

Dad didn't say hello to us either, and he drove very slowly. We had just passed the large beautifully-branching tree at the crest of the hill above the creek when he said suddenly:

"Your mother cried all morning."

I tensed. All of us sat up, apathy gone, no longer bored or disinterested.

"She said none of you did anything for her yesterday," said Dad. "You didn't even wish her a happy Mother's Day."

It was then that I got that burning feeling in my gut, that horrible reaction that is caused by fear - the horror of having done (or not done) what can't be changed, can't be undone or taken back. It's an emotional nausea that roils through one's insides.

The four of us stammered in turns, attempting to come up with an explanation, an excuse. I lamely uttered the fact that I had tried to make something, but it hadn't come out right. Dad was silent, the expression on his face unalterable rebuke. I remember we were passing the creek, that peaceful beautiful stream, when we began to break down one by one with the intense remorse, some of us sobbing loudly.

As we passed the cornfield and approached the turn of the driveway, Dad cut quietly through all the tears, "You're going to apologize to your mother. And you're going to make it up to her. I don't know how you can, but you will."

We tumbled out of the car when it stopped by our little square home. We tore through the front door in a pack and stormed our mother as she stood in the kitchen, hugging her, crying, apologizing continually, and professing our love for her. She held us and received it all with grace.

And that is so like her sweet nature.

But I am still sad to think there ever was a time when I forgot to say, "Mama  Darlin', I love you."

Here's Your Humility (and may God Bless you)

Being a mother is a humbling experience. Maybe it's because you know it's a miracle if your patience makes it to dinnertime, or maybe it's the memory of your little girl asking, "Mama, why won't your bottom fit on the toilet seat?"

As a mother you get the biggest hugs and the most explosive tantrums. Your toddler follows you around half the day like your own personal Jerry Lewis impersonator, wailing, "Ma-maa! Maa-maaaa!" Your son comes home from school with a special recognition for his "great attitude in class and kindness toward others", and you watch him fume and glare because you won't let him have ice cream before dinner. Your little girl slides in her fake high heels and sprawls crying on the floor, tangled up in her Tinker Bell fairy costume.You comfort her silently, the last thread of your sanity taut. And the answer is no, you won't keep your patience through dinnertime, but as you are only human, that was a given.

No one told me how time consuming child-rearing is. I now understand why every time Matthew and I announced to our respective parents that we were expecting again after that first kid, their tone was always cautionary, like I hope you know what you're getting into. Discipline is especially hard work, or, rather, figuring out how to effectively discipline is hard work, and each child is so different in how they respond. I thought I would intuitively know how to discipline my kids; I didn't. The real funny thing is this: I had to learn how to discipline them and myself. I had to learn not to throw tantrums in response to theirs. I had to learn to sing at them to keep myself from blowing a top and yelling. And I had to learn not to blow excessive steam over those constant germ-seeking missiles they call children's hands. I had to become a better person, in short. And it's still a struggle. I'm a ways better than decent but a bit short of good.

And I missed the Angel of Healing Mommy course every mother is supposed to take. I have no natural instinct for caring for the sick. I often forget to take their temperature when I mean to or to give them their medicine on time or at all. I know when something is scarily awry with their health, but as I said, I am not the mother with the instinct for healing boo-boos and administering to the sick. I am the emotional support - the long, soothing hug, the gentle stroking of the hair. With the many fevers we've been through in this house, I've learned how to bring a child's temp down with a lukewarm spongebath, but when it comes to most practical care, I am sadly deficient. This is evident to my children, I know. When once taking care of a cut on Berto's hand, I apologized for not being as adept as Papa, and Berto looked at me with the solemn expression of a disillusioned but forgiving devotee and said, "You try, Mama. You try."

I do indeed try. And I pray. It does help to know that some day when I'm weeping as the last one takes off for college that I'll have the memories of these days to cheer me - that is, after I bury all remnants of mommy guilt in the backyard and edit out all the frustration. All I'll have left is the recollection of all the funny or cute things they said and did. Like the time Berto, a preschooler, sat on the couch and suddenly had an epiphany. "Look, Mama, Papa!" he called to Matthew and me. "This is my longest finger!" And then we turned to see him giving us "the finger", an innocent smile lighting up his features.

I'll also fondly remember how often Analisa ambushed me as I tried to clean up spilled juice on the floor, scrambling on top of my shoulders from any obliging piece of furniture. I'll reminisce about how my groans as forty pounds of weight assailed my back only brought out her giggles as she chanted, "Piggyback ride! Piggyback ride!" with maniacal glee.

I'll recall how every time my youngest daughter, Ella Belle, was upset with someone, she balled her fists at her side, scrunched her eyes into quarter moon-shaped slits, and growled through her teeth, "Stop it you...You Naughty Pants!"

Or how every time his siblings bent over Danny Sam, our littlest, and put a baby toy in their mouth just so they could spit it out on his belly, our little guy giggled crazily and almost involuntarily until I rescued him, so he could catch some oxygen.

I know I'll miss the times when I danced like a monkey with my children to Elvis, Beatles or Monkeys tunes, being completely unladylike and unattrative in my form, while they jumped around me trying to imitate my crazy kicks and swingabouts. I'll remember the never-ending games of red light/green light in the backyard where I ran handicapped with a baby in my arms and always lost. And all the games of Santa May I, Cupid May I, Easter Bunny May I, and how Ella, a little too young still, always half skipped/half danced several steps ahead of what she asked for while the rest of us laughed.

While I was growing up, my mom reminded me of a promise I made when I was a gangly five-year-old rocking in her arms. "Mama, I'm never going to grow up, " I told her. My older siblings had no urge to make such a promise, but I was content. "Remember, you said you were always going to be my baby," my mother would say every now and then after that when I displayed obvious signs of not being able to keep that vow. I understand now the wistfulness that was in her voice. My little Ana says she wants to live with me forever in our three bedroom house. I know better. If she does stay, though, I hope she'll pitch in for some renovations.

When I look forward to looking back, I realize that it's all good, and, no, I don't want them to grow up too quickly. The day will come very soon when Berto knows what it means to hold up his middle finger at someone; Ana is already a little too gangly for piggyback rides, and Ella will not always come to me and beg for a match of Memory or call everyone who displeases her a "naughty pants". Danny Sam? Well, if Danny Sam can learn to fall asleep without me bouncing him in my arms while he continuously yanks at my hair, at least before he hits the teenage years, I'll count that a victory. For now, I'll take the poopy diapers, tantrums, sibling wars, and the nights when I just wish, for the love of heaven, that they'd fall asleep. Because soon enough I'll get what I'm wishing for, and then I'll be a little sad.

Broken

When my eldest son realized what he'd done, or, rather, when I told him just what it was in a calm tone but with a critical expression, he instantly got angry about the fact that he would be blamed for an accident, an accident that involved throwing a toy hard against the front door just for kicks, but an action that had unintended results nonetheless. Oh, my son! He should have realized that his mother was the one who had the right to the crying and yelling.

I wanted to cry, but even as I picked up the three large pieces of the broken cross I could not. Still it was the second blow to my romantic sensibilities in a month. The first had come when the beautiful purple ornament that had been a first Christmas gift to Matthew had smashed on the floor behind the TV, spattering the evidence in thin slivers of broken glass against the wall. It had engraved on it, "Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy!"

I hadn't cried then, either. But I feel very sad about it even now. Still, I had neglected to wrap it carefully and stow it away with the other Christmas ornaments, mostly because it was so large. Now, it's gone and it could have been a fixture on our tree for many years, a reminder of Matthew's and my first Christmas together. Each year as I hung it on a higher branch out of the reach of our little ones, I could have smiled as I reminisced about how I lost this gift before he came for that first Christmas visit, so I had to tell him about how beautiful it was with its gold inscription, and he didn't receive it until almost a year later. I can no longer have that memory ritual each year. It's broken, and no other Christmas ornament can be from the same time in our lives.

The cross, a wedding gift from Matthew's aunt, survives - carefully glued back together, a chunk or two missing. But it is affixed to its proper place by our threshold again, there to witness all our daily hellos and goodbyes, a gatekeeper of sorts. I hope it lives long and prospers.

But its taught me a lesson, this breaking of romantic relics. What goes around comes around, so they say. Now I understand how my mom felt.

When I broke the slender blue-green vase that she and Dad had gotten on their wedding day, I understand why she cried so much and kept asking how? how did this happen? But, most especially, I am close because of the smashed Christmas ball to understanding how she felt the day my brother and I were playing in my sister Vinca's room, rummaging through the closet. We found so many curious relics from Mom and Dad's early years in some boxes there - seashells, identity bracelets, old pamphlets from when Dad ran for State Rep in Idaho. The most boring object, the plainest thing we discovered was a small glass bowl. We carelessly laid it aside in our quest for the interesting, and somehow it broke.

We knew it at least had to be old, so we went to confess, but we were in no way prepared for the emotional response that gripped our mother's face. She sobbed as she took the broken pieces, and then she explained, as I had to do with my own son, that this plain glass bowl had held flowers given to her by our father before they were married. So many years it had been preserved, and we had destroyed this tangible piece of romance in a few careless minutes.

We apologized repeatedly, but our words weren't making a difference. When Mom told us it was okay, that was for our sakes, to make us feel better, less desperate. It didn't alter at all her heartbreak.

It makes me sad to remember that. But I do remember. And now I understand.

The Lady

I was raised by The Lady. I mean my mom, of course. She was such a lady in fact that common every day words like butt, snot and tissue were considered bad words. At least, I think tissue was considered a bad word, perhaps because it could be confused with bathroom tissue. And for The Lady what happened in the bathroom stayed in the bathroom and was NEVER to be discussed. But at any rate a tissue was for us "a naughty nose wiper".

Calling it such (I have no clue why the more specific Kleenex was forbidden) was okay for running around the house, and, "oh my gosh I had a big sneeze, Mama!" moments, but in school using such terms to ask for a tissue could compromise your whole standing as a normal human being. Unfortunately, we did call it that in public...and my sister Annie did at least once when she was a teenager. She walked to the front of her class in junior high school and very politely asked, "Can I have a naughty nose wiper, please?" To describe the amount and length of the laughter that ensued would be to cause her undue pain, but from that time forward tissue was, for her, no longer a forbidden word.

Three of the four of us kids took speech therapy in school. I think it is simply because my mom taught us euphemisms for everything, so no one could understand what the heck we were talking about. They finally figured out we were bright children who knew what we were trying to say, if in a somewhat unusual way, and they shooed us out with a shake of their heads.

And now for the "f" word. No, not that one!! That one does not exist for my mom-it unexists, kind of like the undead. No, I'm talking about the term almost everyone I know uses for passing gas and which, no gentle reader, I cannot even write in good conscience. This word gives me particular trouble now that I am myself a mother; my daughter already says it and says it with gusto. Every time it falls from her mouth, my ears burn, and I wring my hands and plead with her, "Now, sweetheart, it's a toot, remember? What would Grandmama say?"

What would she say indeed? It's so hard to be a lady. I am myself already teaching my kids euphemisms for things, and mine don't quite roll off the tongue the way "naught nose wiper" did. We say nooger instead of booger (sorry, Mom!). We say snoot instead of snot. And carp instead of....well, you know. Okay, so they're not all that clever, but I have no pangs of guilt when I say them. Now, if could just get my daughter to stop calling her bottom her "butt", I'd do my mama proud.