Judging from the number of times I remind my own kids to wash their hands, I’m fairly certain my mom probably went hoarse at times from doing so. However, I have almost no recollection of ever washing my hands as a kid. Surely, I must have—but not often enough to remember, apparently. What I do remember was getting sick. All the time. No wonder.
Every fall and long into the winters of elementary school, I came down with what my mother referred to as “The St. Thomas More Hack”, named affectionately after the school I attended and regularly contracted it from. This persistent, barking, often rattling cough had my number and not a year went by that it didn’t sprint pass my immune system and settle into my chest like I was a pack-a-day smoker. For the most part, there was absolutely nothing you could do but wait it out—but that was not for lack of trying on my mom’s part. As a mom now myself, I’m sure my cough was like a dagger in her heart and fingernails on a chalkboard all at once. All day, all night—like the Energizer Bunny of Death that won’t die. She diligently basted me with Vicks Vaporub every night and blasted the humidifier until the cloth on my canopy bed hung like a damp towel on the rack outside of a sauna. There was even an episode where she concocted a warm “mustard pack” using some kind of home remedy passed down from one side of the family or the other. It emanated up from my chest into my respiratory system and left me smelling like a ballpark frank with a side of German potato salad in the morning. There were times my cough evolved into bronchitis--more than once into pneumonia—and ultimately kept me home from an 8th grade gem-panning field trip more than 2 years after I’d left the school where the pernicious baseline cough first originated. I’m sure there were times my mother considered saying, “Oh, what the hell” and just giving me a swig of warm whiskey—but as far as I can recollect, she didn’t. She just kept at it--until time, Vicks, and Robitussin finally beat my cough into its annual submission.
Not to be out-done by my respiratory system, my gut was also prime real estate for every stomach virus and 24-hour vomit bug the petri dish of elementary school could produce (again, hand-washing was clearly not a well-developed skill for me as a child). And despite ample opportunities for practice, I almost never made it to whatever receptacle had been made readily available to me—opting instead to throw up directly on the carpet next to my bed or--my mom’s personal favorite—to walk clear across the house to my mom’s room, where I would then wake her up as I vomited on her floor. I was 7 years old the night she was in labor with my younger brother—on her own birthday, no less—when I padded across a dark house to throw up on her as she tried to sleep. Naturally, there was frequent verbal rehearsal of the correct way to handle an upset stomach—Use the toilet or the bucket…THEN come find me. But that all seemed to fall on deaf ears, as I repeatedly reverted to what-NOT-to-do every chance I got. Having now cleaned up vomit from my own kids, I often wonder how she resisted dropping me off at the fire station. Just a testament to the depth of her patience and love, I suppose.
After getting the flu every season and coughing and puking my way into my teens, I can happily report that my immune system is now almost as iron-clad as my mother’s apparent stamina for abuse at the hands of sick children. When we were well again, of course, all bets were off and the yelling resumed as needed—but since my personal dial seems to be permanently set at “11” with my own children, I now understand how volume is too often the necessary vehicle for conveying information and directives to people under the age of 20. My mom has always been a passionate person, who most commonly expressed the range of her emotion like any good Irish Catholic mother: through food, through praise—and through a raised, frustrated voice, punctuated by an arsenal of mom-specific colloquialisms that will be forever etched into our memories. A ride to the neighboring town for any reason constituted a voyage to “Outer Mongolia”, which eventually led us to beg the question, Is there an ‘Inner’ Mongolia? And if they have a movie theater, would you be willing to drop us off there? And “dog food” was the frequent headliner on the fictitious menu Mama would respond with when too many of us in a row would badger her at the end of a long day with “What’s for dinner?”
Yes, yes. The five of us wore her patience down to a ragged nub over the years. But it wasn’t until we started to fly the coop that we’d ever seen her cry on a regular basis. As I’ve now experienced myself, it’s difficult to get too sentimental in the moment, when you’re deep in the trenches of motherhood, with all the urine, feces, vomit, back-talk, bad habits, and broken things. But it turns out, as soon as all that starts to subside, you look around and realize you were happy. As your kids launch (or sputter) into adulthood, that longing for the way things were mixes with all the joy and pride and regret for what those kids have or will or didn’t become—and comes spilling out unexpectedly as tears. Happy tears, sad tears, fearful tears—or tears because it’s Tuesday.
In the film A League Of Their Own, Tom Hanks plays a women’s baseball coach who chews a new orifice from which to defecate in one of his female players for performing poorly on the field. When she shrinks into quiet sobs, he responds to the team incredulously, saying, “There’s no crying in baseball!?!” To my mom’s dismay, "baseball" has become our family euphemism for tears that could show up at any time. Most likely, mid-sentence, with no particular segue-way or warning that it’s time to get emotional. Are we relentless? Absolutely. But are we inappreciative? Absolutely not.
Unfortunately, that appreciation does not always shine through the sarcasm--and I’ve inadvertently hurt my mom’s feelings more than once with my tendency to celebrate more what I see as her strength over her softness. Of course, she was loving and nurturing. I’m not taking for granted that every mom succeeds in those areas—and I count myself lucky to have been very blessed with a mom who knew how to make me feel loved. However, her most valuable contribution to my own sense of self-worth was in her example as a force to be reckoned with—for what could be more important for the foundation of a young girl than to be independently strong? And what could be more educational for a son than to recognize and respect that a woman can be unequivocally “in charge”? There was no “wait til your dad gets home” for us. Not because my dad couldn’t have played that part—but because he didn’t need to. My mom ran her bid’niss like a boss—and by the time the day was over, all accounts had been squared with the management. And she was it.
Our mom became a battle-hardened warrior over a period of decades—always motherly—but always in control, always ready to spring to the defense of the weak and strike down the tyranny of…whoever. Would-be boyfriends who’d rejected us, teachers who graded unfairly, “service learning” requirements that necessitated transportation to an exorbitant amount of volunteer work, or even one of her own kids taking advantage of another—she was always poised and ready to bring down the mighty hammer of mom-justice. And while she’ll never truly abandon her post, it’s well-deserved and frankly, over-due that she lay at least some of that armor down and begin a process of rehabilitation from the emotional crusade of seeing five children through to adulthood.
Nevertheless, old habits die hard. When I offered to come by twice in the same week because she hadn’t been feeling well, Mama—of course—resisted. “I’ll be fine. You don’t have to come Saturday, too. You don’t want to be around me when I’m sick…” she texted, as I pictured her sluggishly pulling on her chainmail and listlessly polishing her lance. I persisted and insisted—recalling the mustard packs, barf buckets, and ruined carpets…the Vicks, the vaporizers, and the Robitussin. She called me stubborn—and I told her I got it honestly. You did it for me, I’ll do it for you. To Outer Mongolia and back—and anything BUT dog food for dinner.
I love you, Mama. I’ve learned from the best. Just don’t make me go “baseball” on you…
Because I get that honestly, too.
Happy birthday!!!
Every fall and long into the winters of elementary school, I came down with what my mother referred to as “The St. Thomas More Hack”, named affectionately after the school I attended and regularly contracted it from. This persistent, barking, often rattling cough had my number and not a year went by that it didn’t sprint pass my immune system and settle into my chest like I was a pack-a-day smoker. For the most part, there was absolutely nothing you could do but wait it out—but that was not for lack of trying on my mom’s part. As a mom now myself, I’m sure my cough was like a dagger in her heart and fingernails on a chalkboard all at once. All day, all night—like the Energizer Bunny of Death that won’t die. She diligently basted me with Vicks Vaporub every night and blasted the humidifier until the cloth on my canopy bed hung like a damp towel on the rack outside of a sauna. There was even an episode where she concocted a warm “mustard pack” using some kind of home remedy passed down from one side of the family or the other. It emanated up from my chest into my respiratory system and left me smelling like a ballpark frank with a side of German potato salad in the morning. There were times my cough evolved into bronchitis--more than once into pneumonia—and ultimately kept me home from an 8th grade gem-panning field trip more than 2 years after I’d left the school where the pernicious baseline cough first originated. I’m sure there were times my mother considered saying, “Oh, what the hell” and just giving me a swig of warm whiskey—but as far as I can recollect, she didn’t. She just kept at it--until time, Vicks, and Robitussin finally beat my cough into its annual submission.
Not to be out-done by my respiratory system, my gut was also prime real estate for every stomach virus and 24-hour vomit bug the petri dish of elementary school could produce (again, hand-washing was clearly not a well-developed skill for me as a child). And despite ample opportunities for practice, I almost never made it to whatever receptacle had been made readily available to me—opting instead to throw up directly on the carpet next to my bed or--my mom’s personal favorite—to walk clear across the house to my mom’s room, where I would then wake her up as I vomited on her floor. I was 7 years old the night she was in labor with my younger brother—on her own birthday, no less—when I padded across a dark house to throw up on her as she tried to sleep. Naturally, there was frequent verbal rehearsal of the correct way to handle an upset stomach—Use the toilet or the bucket…THEN come find me. But that all seemed to fall on deaf ears, as I repeatedly reverted to what-NOT-to-do every chance I got. Having now cleaned up vomit from my own kids, I often wonder how she resisted dropping me off at the fire station. Just a testament to the depth of her patience and love, I suppose.
After getting the flu every season and coughing and puking my way into my teens, I can happily report that my immune system is now almost as iron-clad as my mother’s apparent stamina for abuse at the hands of sick children. When we were well again, of course, all bets were off and the yelling resumed as needed—but since my personal dial seems to be permanently set at “11” with my own children, I now understand how volume is too often the necessary vehicle for conveying information and directives to people under the age of 20. My mom has always been a passionate person, who most commonly expressed the range of her emotion like any good Irish Catholic mother: through food, through praise—and through a raised, frustrated voice, punctuated by an arsenal of mom-specific colloquialisms that will be forever etched into our memories. A ride to the neighboring town for any reason constituted a voyage to “Outer Mongolia”, which eventually led us to beg the question, Is there an ‘Inner’ Mongolia? And if they have a movie theater, would you be willing to drop us off there? And “dog food” was the frequent headliner on the fictitious menu Mama would respond with when too many of us in a row would badger her at the end of a long day with “What’s for dinner?”
Yes, yes. The five of us wore her patience down to a ragged nub over the years. But it wasn’t until we started to fly the coop that we’d ever seen her cry on a regular basis. As I’ve now experienced myself, it’s difficult to get too sentimental in the moment, when you’re deep in the trenches of motherhood, with all the urine, feces, vomit, back-talk, bad habits, and broken things. But it turns out, as soon as all that starts to subside, you look around and realize you were happy. As your kids launch (or sputter) into adulthood, that longing for the way things were mixes with all the joy and pride and regret for what those kids have or will or didn’t become—and comes spilling out unexpectedly as tears. Happy tears, sad tears, fearful tears—or tears because it’s Tuesday.
In the film A League Of Their Own, Tom Hanks plays a women’s baseball coach who chews a new orifice from which to defecate in one of his female players for performing poorly on the field. When she shrinks into quiet sobs, he responds to the team incredulously, saying, “There’s no crying in baseball!?!” To my mom’s dismay, "baseball" has become our family euphemism for tears that could show up at any time. Most likely, mid-sentence, with no particular segue-way or warning that it’s time to get emotional. Are we relentless? Absolutely. But are we inappreciative? Absolutely not.
Unfortunately, that appreciation does not always shine through the sarcasm--and I’ve inadvertently hurt my mom’s feelings more than once with my tendency to celebrate more what I see as her strength over her softness. Of course, she was loving and nurturing. I’m not taking for granted that every mom succeeds in those areas—and I count myself lucky to have been very blessed with a mom who knew how to make me feel loved. However, her most valuable contribution to my own sense of self-worth was in her example as a force to be reckoned with—for what could be more important for the foundation of a young girl than to be independently strong? And what could be more educational for a son than to recognize and respect that a woman can be unequivocally “in charge”? There was no “wait til your dad gets home” for us. Not because my dad couldn’t have played that part—but because he didn’t need to. My mom ran her bid’niss like a boss—and by the time the day was over, all accounts had been squared with the management. And she was it.
Our mom became a battle-hardened warrior over a period of decades—always motherly—but always in control, always ready to spring to the defense of the weak and strike down the tyranny of…whoever. Would-be boyfriends who’d rejected us, teachers who graded unfairly, “service learning” requirements that necessitated transportation to an exorbitant amount of volunteer work, or even one of her own kids taking advantage of another—she was always poised and ready to bring down the mighty hammer of mom-justice. And while she’ll never truly abandon her post, it’s well-deserved and frankly, over-due that she lay at least some of that armor down and begin a process of rehabilitation from the emotional crusade of seeing five children through to adulthood.
Nevertheless, old habits die hard. When I offered to come by twice in the same week because she hadn’t been feeling well, Mama—of course—resisted. “I’ll be fine. You don’t have to come Saturday, too. You don’t want to be around me when I’m sick…” she texted, as I pictured her sluggishly pulling on her chainmail and listlessly polishing her lance. I persisted and insisted—recalling the mustard packs, barf buckets, and ruined carpets…the Vicks, the vaporizers, and the Robitussin. She called me stubborn—and I told her I got it honestly. You did it for me, I’ll do it for you. To Outer Mongolia and back—and anything BUT dog food for dinner.
I love you, Mama. I’ve learned from the best. Just don’t make me go “baseball” on you…
Because I get that honestly, too.
Happy birthday!!!
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| My beautiful mother, before she was "Mama", and my dad in front of his bad-ass car. |
Loved it Kathleen your writing is awesome!
ReplyDeleteMan, it's too bad they don't have an awards show for motherhood because your mom definitely would earn one for dealing with vomit while in labor on her birthday. Respect.
ReplyDelete