A Mother’s Love

If you are alive and breathing, you have hated your parents at least a few times.

Admit it….when you were small and got bossed around like a little bitty slave, you hated your parents!!

Until we built what we still call “the new house” we lived in an old, haunted, two story house rented from a neighbor. It was colder than Siberia, no heat in the bedrooms, and we had to walk about two hundred yards to pee in a snake infested outhouse.

I have wonderful memories of that house, to this day.

We had a high porch, with a swing and some plants in rusty cans. I believe the cans were those peanut butter cans you got when you went to the cotton gin to get “commodities”. We drove our Aunt there once a month for cheese, rice, beans, peanut butter and something she called Rex Jelly, which looked like Jello, but tasted like a hair product.

One day, Momma had finally gotten on our last nerve. My sister and I had been in cahoots all day. Momma had snapped and threw us out of the house. We had orders not to come back till meal time.

We whispered as we discussed the situation.  We decided Momma was mean and deserved our disgust.

We hid under the porch where we could look up through a hole in a board and spy on the rest of the family.

I probably started it.

“You hate Momma?” I am sure I asked.

“No.” My sister was much nicer than I, but easily manipulated.

“Well, I hate her.” I said.

“Okay, I hate her, too.” My little sister said.

“I hate her more than you hate her.” I said.

“No, I hate her most. I hate her somuch……………..”

“I hate her worse than anything.”

“I hate her worse than homework.”

“I hate her worse than pulling weeds!”

“I hate, hate, hate her.”

“I hate her a thousand, million hates!”

“AH HA!!!!! I HEARD THAT!!” Momma looked down through the hole in the porch. We could hear her stomping down the steps toward us!

My sister and I looked at each other. We knew for a fact it was our last few moments on earth. We knew for a fact we would be killed and buried under the walnut tree in the back yard. We knew we wouldn’t even get to say goodbye to our daddy and brother!

“Come out from under there this minute!” Momma said.

I figured we would have to “cut a switch.” We never got one big enough, so I was already planning to get the biggest one I could find, and give us a faster death.

 I clutched my little sister by the hand and we came out. We brushed dirt and spider webs off and stood before our judge, our Momma.

“Who started it?” Momma asked. Her hands were on her hips and she still had a wet dishrag clutched in one of them.

“She did…” I said, pointing.

“She did….” My sister said. She pointed at me.

Yes, when the chips were down we turned on each other faster than you could say “Jim Dandy.”

“So, you both started it?”

“No……Ma’am…I promise….she did.” I insisted, causing my poor little sister’s eyes to become bigger than quarters. Even in my terrified state, I knew I could manipulate her.

“I started it. I started it.” My sister began to sob.

“No, I started it.” I said, as I began to realize this was not going to end well, regardless of who started it. I began to cry.

Momma just stood there and looked at us.

Finally, she said, “Someday, you both are going to look back on this day and regret what you said.  I would never have said I hate my mother.  Go ahead, hate me all you want. Now, get back under that porch and talk about me, right now! And it better be bad! Talk about me where I can hear it. I mean it.”

We stopped crying. We looked at each other. We didn’t hate our Momma! Neither of us did! How were we gonna get out of this?

“Get under that porch and start talking!!”

“We don’t want to!” I said. “We don’t hate you!”

“Yes, you do. I heard you say it. Now, get under there and start saying it again!”

Now, Momma might not have even known the words reverse psychology, but she knew how to use it!

We got under the porch. We hollered through the hole that we love our Momma. Yes, we thought that would work. It didn’t.

 We stayed under the porch until we fell asleep on each other. Momma came out and woke us up, for supper.

It was never mentioned again.

I sometimes think about that day. Children feel more, express more, than we adults do. Children have no filter, they just do things..so, I know we were just being kids. Momma knew it, too.

But…I do sometimes think of that day. Momma was right, I do regret saying I hate her.

 I thought about it as I held her tiny hand when she left this earth. I think about it when I see her picture or when I look in the mirror and see her looking back at me.

 I think about it when I wear her jewelry or use her cookbooks. I think about it when I pass by the little house she died in.

But I don’t think about hating her. I think about it in reverse, much like the psychology she used.

 I think about loving her. How I always did, and how I will never, never stop.

 I think about how lucky I am to have had a Momma who sewed for me, cooked for me, and forced me to swallow cod liver oil. I think about how she made me pick blackberries and pull weeds. I also think of how she made work fun…how she would let us skate on the wooden floors in our sock feet, to polish them. How she made a little play house of our very own in the old smoke house, complete with curtains and rugs.

I think about how she would sing or dance while she worked. I can picture her now, twisting to Chubby Checker, or singing a Fats Domino song.

I want to be just like her when I grow up.