When I was
a kid, the months of October-March meant shoveling snow. This is the curse of living in Northern Utah
surrounded by the Wasatch Range of the Rocky Mountains. Shoveling snow was in our DNA. It was usually done in the darkness of the early
morning before my parents and siblings and I would gather around the dining
table to read the scriptures together.
This was also a job that only the boys were employed to do, and one I
would say that Clay and I grew to resent.
It meant waking up a half hour before everyone else and dressing
ourselves in garb fit for the Arctic Circle.
That, perhaps, is an exaggeration, but the point I want to stress is
that it was a cumbersome process just to get to the cumbersome project of
removing an endless supply of falling snow from our sidewalks and driveway.
I have vague
memories of my father’s silhouette against a lit hallway as he opened the door
to my bedroom to beckon me to the work, then his silhouette disappeared in an
explosion of blinding light from the ceiling fixture. He’d say something soft but stern, letting me know that helping was not optional, and that our expeditious cold-weather
assistance was expected, not requested.
I also remember one morning after he woke me up, I fell back
asleep. My bedroom light was still on,
by my eyes had gone black. I don’t know
how long I was out. Probably a few
minutes, maybe longer. But soon my
absence was noticed and I heard the sound of my dad’s footsteps in my
subconscious. Before I had time to kick
my own butt out of bed, I awoke to the angriest version of Herm charging at me
from my bedroom door. He did the
butt-kicking for me. I don’t remember to
perfection, but it’s perfectly possible I had to change my underwear before I
finally joined him and my brother outside in the winter wonderland.
Okay, let’s
get back to mom.
Mom was
always very aware of what we were going through on such mornings. She was aware of the toiling that Clay and I,
and of course my dad, would go through on almost a daily basis. She was aware that the temperatures could
drop below zero on certain mornings, and that each shovel’s load could be wet
and heavy for my young back. She was
aware that the snow, when piled, was usually taller than I was.
I can’t
remember if she did this every morning, or just most (I certainly remember it
happening more than I remember it not happening), but when we finished our
work, my mother would stand at the garage door as I put my shovel up and shed
my winter gear, and she would sing. She
would sing, which she did with the
voice of an angel. And she wouldn’t just sing anything, and
to my knowledge, she didn’t sing to just anyone. The way it written in my memory, she would sing
to me, and she would always sing the same song: Wind Beneath My Wings, by Bette Midler. And she would always start it at the same
place:
Did you ever know that you’re my hero,
And everything I would like to be?
I can fly higher than an eagle,
Cause you are the wind beneath my
wings.
I would try to mask my embarrassment
when she would do that, but it always made me feel loved. Unquestionably. Unconditionally. My mother loved me. If it was not made plain by the singing, it
was certainly made plain by the warm breakfast that she usually had waiting for
my brother and I (dad had already eaten several bowls of mixed dry cereals by
the time he woke us up). One day is was
French toast, another day it was scrambled eggs, another day hot bowls of Cream
of Wheat, which we kids became adept at perfecting with several pounds of brown
sugar.
Pancakes were her specialty, and when
pancakes coincided with a holiday, you could expect them to evolve into some
creative culinary creation. Green
shamrock pancakes on St. Patrick’s Day.
Pink heart pancakes on Valentine’s Day.
Orange pumpkin pancakes on Halloween.
That is the kind of mother I grew up with. Special pancakes and special songs.
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