My son Sander and I were chatting recently about some of my famous childhood catastrophes. I was surprised at how long the list eventually became. And when I ran out of things to list about myself, I began reciting the litany of harrowing situations that my four siblings had found themselves in.That's when I realized that for almost all of the hair-raising, life-threatening, or otherwise discomfiting events in the lives of my sister, my three brothers, and me as we grew up here in Montana, our mother was usually on the scene to coordinate the emergency response.
That is not meant to suggest that my father was never a participant when things happened, but he did have an entire Lutheran congregation for his flock, so there were plenty of times when he was away tending to various parishioners when Mom had to be in charge all by herself.
As I understand it, Dr. Barmeyer assured her that, even though I might be slightly inebriated, it would wear off soon without long-lasting effects. He could not provide much insight into how to deal with members of my father's church who might find it unseemly for the minister's infant child to be drunk in public.
About that same time, I fell off the plywood roof of our little sandbox and won my first set of stitches to close the cut on my chin. A month or two later, a similar latticework adorned my forehead after a nasty fall. And by the time I graduated from high school, there was hardly an unscarred surface on the exposed parts of my body.
In between were several bike wrecks bringing concussions and even some minor surgery. A heavy, metal-edged discus collided with the back of my head. There was self-imposed malnutrition due to some faulty reasoning on my part about losing weight for wrestling. I experienced fishhook embeddings long before "catch and release" was invented and it became de rigueur to pinch down barbs on your favorite trout flies or spinning lures.
My list was a long and torturous one, continuing well into adulthood before the grand dame was allowed some brief respite. But my resume pales when multiplied by four more kids, all five of us requiring a variety of emergency services, tender loving care, guidance, and calm reassurance as things were collapsing around us.
Whatever the crisis, our mother, like others the world over, would quickly gather herself from any shocked response to whatever was presented to her, take a deep breath, and direct the necessary rescue operation. Events ranged from my then 4-year-old sister Sally swallowing a nickel that became lodged in her throat to putting my brother Sandy back together after his horse managed to rake him through several hundred feet of rusty barbed wire fence and jagged fence poles.
There were ill-advised and ill-fated attempts to leap bonfires, and broken legs from pretending to be paratroopers leaping off tables in the basement. There were sunburns, bee stings, lost glasses in the wilderness, sprained ankles, broken hearts, and broken dreams, all needing to be tended to with calm gentleness born of unconditional love.
Never mind that her first response might be something like:
"Gregory Mark, have you lost your marbles?" or "Don't you have the brains you were born with?"
Once the scolding and disbelief were done, she proceeded with the business of helping make right whatever was wrong. And most often, broken bodies were the easy part. Broken hearts and dashed hopes and dreams were a tougher order. But over the long haul she never failed to hold out her hand to help each of us along.
All the while, watching her children grow up in this wild, wonderful hunk of country that is Montana, she never tired of reminding us of how lucky we were to live in this place or of encouraging us to get out and explore and learn about it all. By the same token, she always eagerly listened to our tales of adventure and excitement when returning from expeditions, hunting trips, fishing trips, or afternoon hikes. She loved to see the enjoyment in our eyes and hear the wonder in our voices. She loved that her entire life.
How lucky I was! How lucky my son Sander is to have a mother who does the same for him, no matter how many times his judgment may come up short or his adventures go awry. And how fortunate we are that mothers are looking out for us, sharing our joy and helping us carry our sorrows and disappointments!
Washington Irving, known to most of us for "The Legend of Sleep Hollow," was also an essayist of some repute during his time. I think he had it right when he wrote these words about mothers:
"A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us; still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts."
Amen, and a happy Mother's Day to all of you moms out there.
Greg Tollefson is a freelance Missoula writer whose column appears each week in Outdoors. He can be reached at gtollefson@bresnan.net.
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