If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits? (14 page)

The extra chin is custom-grown and takes years to perfect. Sometimes you can only see it from the side but its there. Pampered women don't have an extra chin. They cream them away or pat the muscles until they become firm. But this chin has always been there, supporting a nodding head that has slept in a chair all night... bent over knitting... praying.

The legs are still shapely, but the step is slower. They ran too often for the bus, stood a little too long when she “clerked” in the department store, got beat up while teaching her daughter how to ride a two-wheeler. They're purple at the back of the knees.

The hands? They're small and veined and have been dunked, dipped, shook, patted, wrung, caught in doors, splintered, dyed, bitten and blistered, but you can't help but be impressed when you see the ring finger that has shrunk from years of wearing the same wedding ring. It takes time— and much more—to diminish a finger.

I looked at Mother long and hard the other day and said, “Mom, I have never seen you so beautiful.” “I work at it,” she snapped.

“You Don't Love Me”

“You don't love me!”

How many times have your kids laid that one on you?

And how many times have you, as a parent, resisted the urge to tell them how much?

Someday, when my children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates a mother, I'll tell them.

I loved you enough to bug you about where you were going, with whom, and what time you would get home.

I loved you enough to insist you buy a bike with your own money that we could afford and you couldn't.

I loved you enough to be silent and let you discover your hand-picked friend was a creep.

I loved you enough to make you return a Milky Way with a bite out of it to a drugstore and confess, “I stole this.”

I loved you enough to stand over you for two hours while you cleaned your bedroom, a job that would have taken me fifteen minutes.

I loved you enough to say, “Yes, you can go to Disney World on Mother's Day.”

I loved you enough to let you see anger, disappointment, disgust and tears in my eyes.

I loved you enough not to make excuses for your lack of respect or your bad manners.

I loved you enough to admit that I was wrong and ask your forgiveness.

I loved you enough to ignore “what every other mother” did or said.

I loved you enough to let you stumble, fall, hurt and fail.

I loved you enough to let you assume the responsibility for your own actions, at six, ten, or sixteen.

I loved you enough to figure you would lie about the party being chaperoned, but forgave you for it... after discovering I was right.

I loved you enough to shove you off my lap, let go of your hand, be mute to your pleas... so that you had to stand alone.

I loved you enough to accept you for what you are, not what I wanted you to be.

But most of all, I loved you enough to say no when you hated me for it. That was the hardest part of all.

Are You Listening?

It was one of those days when I wanted my own apartment... unlisted.

My son was telling me in complete detail about a movie he had just seen, punctuated by three thousand “You know's?” My teeth were falling asleep.

There were three phone calls—strike that— three monologues that could have been answered by a recording. I fought the urge to say, “It's been nice listening to you.”

In the cab from home to the airport, I got another assault on my ear, this time by a cab driver who was rambling on about his son whom he supported in college, and was in his last year, who put a P.S. on his letter saying, “I got married. Her name is Diane.” He asked me, “What do you think of that?” and proceeded to answer the question himself.

There were thirty whole beautiful minutes before my plane took off... time for me to be alone with my own thoughts, to open a book and let my mind wander. A voice next to me belonging to an elderly woman said, “I'll bet its cold in Chicago.”

Stone-faced, I answered, “It's likely.”

“I haven't been to Chicago in nearly three years,” she persisted. “My son lives there.”

“That's nice,” I said, my eyes intent on the printed page of the book.

“My husband's body is on this plane. We've been married for fifty-three years. I don't drive, you know, and when he died a nun drove me from the hospital. We aren't even Catholic. The funeral director let me come to the airport with him.”

I don't think I have ever detested myself more than I did at that moment. Another human being was screaming to be heard and in desperation had turned to a cold stranger who was more interested in a novel than the real-life drama at her elbow.

All she needed was a listener... no advice, wisdom, experience, money, assistance, expertise or even compassion... but just a minute or two to listen.

It seemed rather incongruous that in a society of super sophisticated communication, we often suffer from a shortage of listeners.

She talked numbly and steadily until we boarded the plane, then found her seat in another section. As I hung up my coat, I heard her plaintive voice say to her seat companion, “I'll bet its cold in Chicago.”

I prayed, “Please God, let her listen.”

Why am I telling you this? To make me feel better. It won't help, though.

The Chimes

Everything is in readiness.

The tree is trimmed. The cards taped to the doorframe. The boxes stacked in glittering disarray under the tree.

Why don't I hear chimes?

Remember the small boy who made the chimes ring in a fictional story years ago? As the legend went, the chimes would not ring unless a gift of love was placed on the altar. Kings and men of great wealth placed untold jewels on the altar, but year after year the church remained silent.

Then one Christmas Eve, a small child in a tattered coat made his way down the aisle and without anyone noticing he took off his coat and placed it on the altar. The chimes rang out joyously throughout the land to mark the unselfish giving of a small boy.

I used to hear chimes.

I heard them the year one of my sons gave me a tattered piece of construction paper on which he had crayoned two hands folded in prayer and a moving message, “OH COME HOLY SPIT!”

I heard them the year I got a shoebox that contained two baseball cards and the gum was still with them.

I heard them the Christmas they all got together and cleaned the garage.

They're gone, aren't they? The years of the lace doilies fashioned into snowflakes... the hands traced in plaster of paris... the Christmas trees of pipe cleaners... the thread spools that held small candles. They're gone.

The chubby hands that clumsily used up two dollars' worth of paper to wrap a cork coaster are sophisticated enough to take a number and have the gift wrapped professionally.

The childish decision of when to break the ceramic piggybank with a hammer to spring the fifty-nine cents is now resolved by a credit card.

The muted thump of pajama-covered feet paddling down the stairs to tuck her homemade crumb scrapers beneath the tree has given way to pantyhose and fashion boots to the knee.

It'll be a good Christmas. We'll eat too much. Make a mess in the living room. Throw the warranties into the fire by mistake. Drive the dog crazy taping bows to his tail. Return cookies to the plate with a bite out of them. Listen to Christmas music.

But Lord... what I would give to bend low and receive a gift of toothpicks and library paste and hear the chimes just one more time.

Epilogue

When you're an orthodox worrier, some days are worse than others.

I pride myself on being able to handle traumas, natural disasters, deep depression, misfortune, hardship, discomfort, and readily adjust when they run out of extra crispy chicken at the carry-out.

But last week, you would not believe that even a professional pessimist could have survived what I went through.

It began on Monday when the kids filed into the kitchen completely dressed.

I stood there with my iron (the one with the fifty-foot cord) and asked, “Who wants something pressed before you go to school?” No one moved!

My car with the new battery actually started. I found a parking place in front of the supermarket, got a shopping cart with four wheels that all went in the same direction at the same time, and found a sale on something edible that I needed. That night, on television, Angie Dickinson looked a little fat. I cooked a dinner that no one had had for lunch.

All of that began to make me feel a little edgy, but I figured by the next day things would surely get back to normal. They didn't. At the library, all four of the books I had written were checked out. I took a bath and the phone didn't ring. I sewed up a skirt and with two inches left to do, the bobbin didn't even run out of thread. I went to bed thinking things had to get worse tomorrow... they couldn't get any better.

On Wednesday, I ran for a bus and made it. The dentist said I had no cavities. The phone was ringing when I arrived home and even after I dropped my key a couple of times, I answered it and they were still on the line. The Avon lady refused me service saying I didn't need her as I already looked terrific. My husband asked me what kind of a day I had and didn't leave the room when I started to answer.

By Thursday, I was a basket case anticipating what was in store for me, but it didn't happen, My daughter told me my white socks looked good with wedgies. The checkbook balanced. No one snacked and ruined their dinners, and a film at the school, The History of Sulphur, was canceled.

On Friday, I was sobbing into a dishtowel when my husband tried to comfort me, “I can't help it,” I said, “things were never meant to go this well. I'm worried.”

“Now, now,” he said patting my shoulder, “things can't go rotten all the time. How could we appreciate the bad times if we don't have a good day once in a while.”

“I know I'm going to get it,” I said. “Do you know that yesterday I went into the boys' room and their beds were made? (He frowned.) And that we got a note from the IRS apologizing for being late with our refund? This isn't like us,” I whined. “The bad times I can handle. It's the good times that drive me crazy. When is the other shoe going to drop?”

We heard a car turn into the garage and make the sickening scrape of a fender when it meets an immovable wall.

We looked at each other and smiled. Things are looking up.