In the 1960s, I was like most kids who thought they were smarter than their parents. I guess I didn’t really, but I certainly thought that I was more hip. Typical teenaged stuff.
Mama always seemed unemotional and preoccupied. It was only fully into adulthood that I understood why. I understood the immense pressures she was under in those days from the time she woke up in the morning until she fell into blessed sleep at night to get ready to do what she had to do all over again.
As an adult, I realized Mama was the one consistent in my life that never wavered, never failed and never gave up. My grown-up self is – to this day – astounded at her strength, perseverance and loving nature.
I and both my siblings have discussed how different our lives would have been without her being the kind of woman she was. Navigating through childhoods wrought with constant pain, overwhelming uncertainty and unrelenting fear could have shot us into adulthoods that continued profound generational dysfunctions.
I knew Mama loved me. I wasn’t sure how much she liked me. I smile about that now because the years ahead proved that, not only did she like me, she deeply respected me. When I was older, she admitted that she always admired how spunky* I was.
Something happened when I was about 14 that changed my opinion about her forever. She went from being a robotic figure in my childish mind to being a human with super hero qualities.
Mama loved cooking. She was a whiz and proud of her kitchen abilities. So, when she learned about an available cook position at a junior high school lunchroom less than 3 miles away, she applied. She got the job.
Fast forward a couple of years to the day that she got hurt at work.
Remember how big those metal vats were when you’d stand in line to get soup or chili or some kind of noodle dish? I don’t remember all from that day, and suspect I blocked some of those horrible details. But what my memory does provide clearly is how one of those hot, full-to+the-brim, big metal pots got poured over her shoulder down her back and arm. The only thing I can think of that makes sense is that she must have bent down in front of the stove and, somehow, one of the full vats turned over.
Let me say first that we know there was nothing malicious about her accident. Even though the late 1960s was a time of deep racial divides, there were as many Whites as there were Blacks working in that luchroom kitchen. Throw in the fact that they all loved her, I don’t think any one of them would have allowed her to be attacked without reporting it.
I can’t let myself think about how horrible that must have been for her when the vat spilled
From those days, actually all I can remember clearly are the times when it was just the two of us before Daddy got home from work and before she had to start supper. She’d ask me to “dress” her. Of course that was not something I was going to refuse.
She would position herself on the side of a big chair with her back to me, drop her shirt and pull her bra strap down to her elbow. I’d sit behind her with freshly scrubbed hands, take the salve and, as lightly as possible, I’d begin making sticky circles all around her injured skin. It wasn’t pleasant, but I wasn’t too selfish to refuse. I did it with a broken heart for her pain.
We didn’t talk much if at all during this ritual. But if I learned nothing else during this time, it was razor sharp clarity of how much I loved her and would have done anything to spare her all of that pain.
The greatest “gift” from this experience was that she no longer seemed like a passive, unemotional presence in my life. She was fully human with the same ability as everyone to feel joy, pain, fear and gratitude. Same as I who, before this happened, had taken her so much for granted.
* “Respecting someone because they are spunky means admiring their bold, energetic, and spirited approach to life. It involves valuing their fearlessness, quick wit, and refusal to back down from challenges.” –Google
