Call Your Mom

My mom and I live in different states so we talk on the phone. Sometimes she reminisces. The following stories are from one of those calls.

“My father used to take me and Jack for a ride sometimes on Sundays. Otherwise he rarely drove the car. He’d go on a mountain road with a sheer cliff and pretend to get too close to scare me. He thought it was funny. I didn’t.”

“I went to a small school. Two first grade classes, two second, two third and two fourth. Every year the school had a show for parents. In third grade we were supposed to be penguins. We each needed a yard of white and a yard of black material costing about 75 cents. My father wouldn’t pay for that. I was heartbroken to not be in the show. The next year, the fourth graders were the big shots – oldest in the school and we dressed like ushers. We wore red satin pants, gold shirts and a pillbox hat. Maybe that material cost 95 cents. Again, my father wouldn’t buy it. But my aunt Agnes, my godmother, bought it all and made the costume. I remember it because one year I was heartbroken and the next year I was thrilled.”

“My father never spent money on anything that was not a necessity. There was a fund raiser at school one year and every kid was supposed to sell a container of Morton salt (the cardboard canister) for ten cents. He wouldn’t buy it – from me or from Jack. We couldn’t sell it to anyone else because everyone we knew had kids selling salt and they all bought their own kid’s.”

In contrast, she said, “My mother always bought whatever she wanted. She had a washer with a ringer when other women were still using washboards. She had a radio, sewing machine, piano and a fur coat. Nobody had a fur coat in Parsons. It was black.  When my mother died, before she was even buried, two of her sisters were fighting over the coat. My father didn’t let either of them have it. I think he gave it to the other sister.”

I said, “It’s Lexi’s birthday today.” 

My mom said, “Oh, I thought it was tomorrow. It’s hard to remember because almost everyone in the family was either born or died on a holiday.”  I said, “Well it’s Purple Heart Remembrance Day.” And she replied, “Oh, so it is kind of a holiday.  Pop died on Paddy’s birthday. Paddy was born on St. Patrick’s Day. Aunt Agnes died on St. Patrick’s Day too.  Jimmy was born a few days before Christmas. Michael was born the day after Thanksgiving. Actually I went into labor on Thanksgiving but he was born the next morning. I keep thinking every time a holiday rolls around, Oh, I hope I’m not going to die. I almost did die, though. I remember hearing people talk. I was delirious with fever but heard people talking. “If the fever doesn’t break, she won’t make it.” That night it felt like my head exploded and the next morning the fever was gone. I found out later I had double pneumonia. So I didn’t die.”

I said, Well I’m happy about that and she said, “Yes, if I died, you’d belong to someone else.”