One Day Isn't Enough to Praise Mothers
Mother’s Day doesn’t cut it. A single day of appreciation cannot do justice to
the significance or the diversity of maternal duties. Think about it:
mothers have traditionally been expected to combine the skills of
teachers, ministers, cooks, maids, chauffeurs, counselors, coaches,
mediators—and nurses.
In my case, my mother was forced
repeatedly to be an untrained emergency medical technician. As a child I
was accident prone. My early years were nearly my last years. Some
would say that I had a death wish. No, I was not suicidal—just hell-bent
and stupid. After all, I was a boy.
The year was 1954. At the
tender age of three-and-a-half, I was invited to spend the afternoon at a
friend’s house. We then lived in south Atlanta, in a neighborhood
situated on land crisscrossed by Union and Confederate armies during the
Civil War. My friend Ricky and I loved to look for war relics, and we
accumulated quite a collection of bullets, uniform buttons, and shell
fragments. On this particular day, Ricky grabbed a hatchet from his
father’s tool shed and, unbeknownst to his distracted mother, we began
mining his backyard for war booty. Amid our digging, I saw something
glistening in the dirt, leaned over to take a closer look, and suddenly
saw stars.
My well-intentioned friend had accidentally plunged
the hatchet into my skull. Blood streamed down my face and neck, ruining
my powder-blue Hopalong Cassidy cowboy shirt. It was my favorite piece
of clothing, and I was crestfallen to see it soaked in blood. By the
time my mother arrived, I was in shock. She was aghast at my wound, yet
she kept her composure, rushed me to the hospital, and watched with
relief as the surgeon repaired my fractured skull and stitched me up.
“Another quarter inch and he’d be dead,” the doctor reported. My mother
took some comfort in the assumption that, having dodged death by
tomahawk, I would thereafter lead a charmed and healthy life.
Wrong.
No sooner had my head healed than mom and I were back at the emergency
room. This time the doctor was sewing my little finger back on my hand.
My pinkie had been left dangling when one of my sister’s friends had
closed the car door on my hand. I never did like that girl.
But I
loved danger—and independence. A few months after regaining the use of
my mangled hand, I climbed into the family car, released its parking
brake, and proceeded to ride solo backwards down the steep hill in front
of our house. When my frantic mother finally caught up with the runaway
Chevy as it veered off the driveway and into the grass, I was
congratulating myself on the floorboard, delighted by my latest
adventure. Mom was not amused. I tried to deflect her anger by pointing
out that this time I needed no stitches. For several days thereafter, I
learned to love my room. In fact, my lifelong love of reading was
initially nurtured by such well-deserved periods of solitary
confinement.
Yet once liberated I renewed my precocious quest for
mobility. I decided it was time to ride a bicycle. In taking to the
open road, however, I neglected to seek instruction. Instead I
commandeered my brother’s bike and took off on my own. It was
exhilarating to ride for the first time—and so easy. I had no trouble
keeping my balance, but I soon realized that I had no idea how a bicycle
is stopped once set in motion. An encounter with the side of our house
ended my first bike ride, and once again mother and son headed to the
hospital.
Mom and I would make five more trips to the emergency
room. I will spare you the gory details and simply say that the other
incidents involved broken bones, a brick in the forehead, and one
emergency surgery. I should have become a doctor.
So on this
Mother’s Day I salute all mothers—especially my own—for their roles as
911 responders, emergency medical technicians, surgical assistants, and
recovery nurses. They even help heal broken hearts. Someday I’ll tell
you about how my mother taught me at age 11 that being spurned by a girl
is not the end of the world. In fact, for me such rejection was a
recurring refrain.
I love you mom. You were not always amused by my hijinks, but you kept me in stitches.