More Mom Memories

It’s December 1, 2023, and my brother Eric reminded me this morning that Mom would have turned 86 today were she still with us.

Home at lunch by myself, I looked at an old picture of her, taken before I was born. She is young and slim and attractive; she’s pinning on a corsage, and she looks very happy. I looked at the photo and thought about Mom long enough for a painful lump of ice to form in my throat, melt, and come out my eyes.

She was an amazing person—one in a million isn’t enough; she was one in a billion.

Here are a few scattered memories of her that flutter around in my head from time to time.

Days of Joy

Mom knew how to raise boys. She knew what boys were like and how to handle them. She must have come by this naturally, because she wasn’t raised with boys—only her older sister. Maybe it wasn’t that she was a natural at “raising boys”; maybe it was just that she wasn’t going to let anybody buffalo her, be it a screaming three-year-old or a disrespectful teen.

But, of course, you have to be much more than just a disciplinarian to raise children. You need to know how they think and what they need. Mom had a handle on that. When Keith and I were very little, our house had a piano in the dining room. By passing through a door in the dining room, you entered the playroom. And the playroom was connected to the kitchen, which was connected to the dining room again—making a convenient oval loop.

Mom loved to play the piano, whether for church or just for fun at home. So, on rainy days when we two cooped-up boys would get too rowdy, she would say, “OK, boys, we’re going to march!” And she handed each of us a cooking pot and a large spoon. Then she’d play a piece with a nice, firm marching beat (“When Johnny Comes Marching Home” comes to mind), and we boys would go around the oval over and over and over, rhythmically beating on the pans as loudly as we could!

What do you do when you’re home with two preschool boys who have the wiggles on a rainy day? Well, you can yell at them. You can send them to their room. You can plop them in front of the TV.

Or you can wisely realize they are little boys—they have lots of energy. That’s just how little boys are. Instead of pointlessly trying to shackle that energy, Mom accepted it and used it up!

Everybody ended up happy when the marching ended. We boys were happy because we had gotten to make a lot of noise in the house. And Mom was happy because, looking at those two red, sweaty faces, she knew naptime would not be a battle today!

Days of Innocence

Another tool Mom kept in her toolbelt was to send us outside for a run. We lived on a scarcely trafficked dead-end alley off the main street in our town. Mom would say, “Go out there and run up and down the alley five times!” And off we would go!

It didn’t feel like punishment, because it was fun to run to the dead end, turn around, and come back. And we always ran exactly the number Mom stated—the higher our energy level, the more laps we ran. It speaks volumes about the respect we had for her (mixed with fear, maybe?) that we obeyed like that. After all, she wasn’t watching us or counting the laps.

One particularly noisy evening, Mom said, “All right! Go outside and run up and down the alley twelve times!”

Twelve times! That was a new high. Could we do it?

Well, we never found out. It was twilight, and things felt kind of spooky. As we ran down the alley toward the dead end, I said, “Look at that cloud!”

The cloud was alone in the sky, kind of purple with pink edges. We stopped and stared. It looked so . . . odd.

“Steve,” Keith whispered, “what if heaven is on that cloud?”

The thought of being that close to glory sent us both tearing to the back door and slamming it behind us. We weren’t scared of heaven—but we were scared of accidentally getting too close to it. I mean, what if an angel flew out of the cloud? Or what if Jesus looked over the edge of the cloud at us? We loved Jesus, and we knew He was always watching us, but the idea of catching Him peeking at us from a cloud was pretty . . . well, terrifying!

Fortunately Mom didn’t ask whether we’d done all the laps. It was 7:00, time for Truth or Consequences. Mom and Dad sat in their comfy chairs. My brother and I sat on the threadbare gray carpet, and we all laughed together at Bob Barker making grown-ups look foolish.

Days of Love

Thinking about watching TV brings to mind one special evening.

Every afternoon Keith and I started to watch The 4:00 Movie—but five o’clock was supper time, so we never got to finish it.

One evening the station was running Abbott and Costello in Hold That Ghost, a mixture of humor and horror. I was entranced—it was exactly my kind of entertainment, even at that young age.

Mom must have known how I felt, because she said, “Let’s all have a picnic in front of the TV tonight!” And she brought out a chair and a TV tray and set them up for me. I sat down, and a little later she brought out, steaming hot, my favorite supper . . .

Creamed tuna on toast.

And I ate my favorite supper while picnicking in front of the TV, watching a scary movie with my brother sprawled on the floor and Mom and Dad lounging and laughing behind us.

That was one of the best evenings of my childhood . . . one of the best evenings of my life.

Those were days of joy, innocence, and love.

Thanks, Mom.

Copyright 2023, Steven Nyle Skaggs