My Mother, My Friend

Dear, Dear Mother,

Today is your birthday and just one of many times that I think about all those years we spent together in Idaho. Remember when I was 16 and newly married? We lived downstairs in your and Dad's big brick house on Palmer Rd. You never complained about that. Every night you cooked dinner and every night we gathered around the kitchen bar, blessed the food, and ate. You cooked simply, Mother, and I know that sometimes you felt that your food wasn't fancy enough, especially compared to the way my mother cooked. Hers was just different, that's all. I tried to assure you that your food was delicious but I don't know that you were ever convinced. You fixed chicken, roast beef, or hamburger patties, mashed or baked potatoes, gravy, a canned vegetable (usually green beans) and sometimes a salad or beet pickles from the fruit room downstairs. Chicken was either fried in the big black iron skillet, or put in the oven in a roasting pan and nobody could match your milk gravy! (Brandon never stopped talking about it as long as he lived). Beef was always roasted surrounded by potatoes and carrots. And steak from the grass-fed beef was sometimes substituted for hamburger. For dessert you served homemade fruit pie (remember how you'd make 12 at a time and freeze them?), jello salad, or canned peaches which you and Dad bottled every summer. You always set the bar with your everyday dishes--white Corelle ware with the yellow gold trim, plastic gold tumblers, paper napkins, salt and pepper, slices of homemade bread, and ice in our cups. Dad drank soda pop every night and you usually drank water. Larry and I usually drank soda pop or milk, but sometimes you fixed Koolaide. Larry's place was on the round stool closest to the wall, giving his left-handed elbow freedom to move. I sat next to him on his right, and Dad sat a space down from me, closest to the telephone. As the children came, the bar accomodated them and their high chairs, too. I never told you how much it meant to me for all those happy times around that kitchen bar, happier than any other place I can think of. And over the years, you sat across from all of us in the corner where the big cabinets that Dad built joined each other so you could get to the stove or refrigerator easily if we wanted seconds.

Sunday meals were the same as every day meals except for more choices of food, and then you used the clear glass tumblers with the painted flowers on them. Only when we had large family gatherings did we eat around the dining room table and the bar. I loved it when you used your pretty china with the roses on them and a tablecloth to protect the dining room set you'd inherited from your sister, Marvel. Age determined who sat at the dining table and who sat at the bar with preferential treatment oldest to youngest, but the kids didn't seem to mind where they ate since they were always hungry for your home cooking. If we had a really, really large group, the adults fed the kids first, sent them outside or downstairs, and then we ate. How I miss those precious times together in that house. You and Dad were my parents in almost every sense of the word.

Only one experience with you gives me cause for chagrin and that was shortly after Larry and I were married. I don't think that I ever thanked you for it and the lesson you and Dad taught me about growing up and taking adult responsibility.

After our family dinners, Larry and I jumed up from the table and usually went downstairs or outside. Sometimes we joined Dad in the den to watch television. Several weeks went by and one night Dad took Larry aside and told him, "You guys are not children anymore. Marci should help Mother with the dishes after we eat." Needless to say, when Larry told me, I was mortified. I knew better than that! I guess I was so wrapped up in my own life that it never occurred to me to lend you a hand. Typical teenager. I simply hadn't stopped to think about the work and sacrifices you were making for us, and indeed, I felt like one of your own from the beginning. I guess you could say that, married or not, that's when I began to grow up. I was eager to jump in and help you after that and you always thanked me. Looking back, I realize that all those after- dinner times together formed the basis for our life-long friendship. My memories of putting food away, washing out the gold porcelain sink, and washing and drying off the big counter are sweet ones. I even love the memory of how you always put your little dish with the plastic fruit in the center of the bar after we were finished. I have that dish now and it's a reminder of you and all you taught me. I will love you forever! Happy Birthday, Mother.