Remembering the Mother's Day of My Childhood

Mom & Dad

Celeste and I were recently reminiscing about our mothers because of Mother's Day, and while positive memories dominated the conversation, there was a point where I came clean: for me, Mother's Day played host to some of my most bitter and terrifying childhood memories.

Back me up on this, siblings.

I don't think God intended for it to be this way.  I mean, Mother's Day is planted squarely in the middle of Springtime, when birds fill the air with their birdsongs, and the sun's rays beam down upon the earth to illuminate its splendiferous glory.  And yet, as children, that day seemed to bring only storms, and tears from heaven and ours swollen eyes.  Why, you ask?  Why such gloom on what was meant to be such a joyous occasion?

My dad.  That's why.

Some of you are shocked, I'm sure, to learn that Herm-daddy could be the bringer of such bad omens and the conjurer of such painful childhood memories, but it's true.  He did.  And to his credit, he did it for all the right reasons.

See, in my father's head, he reasoned that Mother's Day had to be absolutely perfect.  To honor his beloved wife, every crumb would be swept, every meal would be perfectly prepared, and every task would be executed without my mother having to lift a finger.  What a model dad.  Truly.  He really knew how to take care of my mother.  The only problem is that for the kids, it meant a milder form of slavery for a day.

I've tried to block out the worst events, but I remember distinctly waking up on Mother's Days to violent shaking at my father's hands before dawn (it's a miracle I never suffered a heart attack) to do something ridiculous like churn butter or beat the dust out of our family's collection of rugs, all while Jedadiah (Clay) and Rosemary (Josie) ground the corn for fresh biscuits and polished the silver.  At least that's what it felt like.  Honest to goodness, I remember Herm asking me to vacuum the house one year.  That's not something we did on Sunday's in our family, and what makes it even more ridiculous, is that it WAS something we did on Saturdays, just a mere 24 hours earlier.

Dad meanwhile oversaw all of the day's operations from the kitchen, where he ruled with his iron fist while meticulously cooking a stew overburdened by potatoes and seasoning salt.  He also would be franticly mixing and baking his signature dessert: a Betty Crocker cake.  As a general rule, we kids stayed out of the kitchen and out of his way at all costs.  As a general rule, we kids didn't talk.

Meanwhile, mom would wake up to breakfast in bed, which we would deliver to her after we had covered our bruises with skin-toned makeup.  She would say sweet things to us and praise us while our father stood by.  Then there was church and dinner (supper, as dad called it), then visits to grandparents.  We weren't allowed outside.  We weren't allowed to have fun.  We weren't allowed to make mistakes.  Perfection at every turn.  No fighting or arguing (which we had grown to be rather good at).  It made for one of the longest days of the year, filled with motherly compliments and fatherly glares that could make you pee a little bit if you weren't vigilantly defending.  We avoided the glares as much as we could, and accepted the motherly compliments with smiles and nods, but secretly wished beyond anything to return to our bedrooms and hide in our dark closets until Monday came.

So here's to Mother's Day: a day to honor the sacred vessels that brought us into the world, the angels that nurtured and protected us from our very first moments on earth.  And here's to fathers, who may not have employed the best methods, but proved beyond question their undying and unflinching love and loyalty to such angels.

Cheers.