Just be a Good Girl

Every year leading up to Mother's Day, I'd ask my mother "What do you want for Mother's Day?", hoping she'd say flowers or jewelry or anything I could get my father to take me to a store and help me purchase for her. And every year, she'd give me the exact same answer, "Just be good....that's all I want." So annoying.

Daddy would purchase a carnation corsage for her to wear to church. Each year of elementary school our class would make some sort of craft to gift our mothers. The little homemade cardboard calendar I made in second grade hung on her bathroom wall till I left home at eighteen.

For the record, I really did try to be a good girl. The last time I remember getting a swat was when I was a rather sassy hormonally deranged sixteen-year-old. I have no recollection of why I felt the need to yell at her to shut up, but when her hand connected with the back of my bare leg I remember thinking as I stormed off to my bedroom to have a good little cry, that I totally deserved what she doled out to me.

Every Sunday was a roast beef and gravy dinner, rice and corn as the main sides. My job was to add a spoon of butter and a few shakes of seasoning salt, Accent/msg and pepper to the corn. For special occasions, we'd have a Jell-O salad, usually just an orange or berry flavored Jell-O with a can of drained fruit cocktail mixed in and some mayonnaise spread over the top once it had set. I guess mayonnaise for my parents was like cool whip for others. And since she made the best pie crust in the whole world, we'd likely be served one of her famous lemon meringue pies. She loved baking pies when she had time. When we'd finished our after-church dinner, taking a knife she'd run through some hot water and slice into the pillowy white meringue and through the bottom layer of buttery tart yellow lemon custard. She would always be a little nervous that it hadn't set up well enough to eat just yet, but every single time the knife would cut through perfectly.

While we'd eat our dessert, Mama would take advantage of her now quiet, captive audience and read out loud to us out of a book or magazine. Sometimes it would be fiction, sometimes a biography or an article she thought would be important for us to know about. If it was humorous, she'd start chuckling to herself while reading and then her laughter would be the best, most captivating thing. To this day, the majority of my siblings are avid readers; it is no mystery as to why.

A couple of weeks before Mama passed away, she had been admitted to the hospital for a bout of pneumonia. Stopping by the bakery to purchase a couple of pastries to bring to her for a treat, my mind wandered to the story she'd tell of her hospital stay when I was born, and the first meal the nurse brought to her. "I took the silver lid off the white plate. And on it was a little piece of white fish, a white potato, some white cauliflower, and a little sprig of green parsley on top. Well balanced, but so depressing to look at! You know what your Daddy always says....'You eat with your eyes first!"

When I got to her hospital room, I peaked my head in the door. "How you feeling Mama?" "Oh so much better! Come in and see me!" I sat on the side of her bed and pulled a Danish out of the paper bag. She sat up and while she nibbled on it, I reminded her of her "all white meal" story and just as I hoped she would, she re-told it again, her lilting voice sounding as surprised at the presentation on the plate as the first time she'd told it to me. I asked her if she wanted the second pastry and she said she wanted to save it for later. She really does seem so much better....breathing better....."Mama, will you read to me? Out loud?....but only if you feel good enough to..." She sat up a little straighter. "Oh of course honey! Let me swing my legs around so I can sit next to you a little better." I pulled up my most recent blog post on my phone. One I'd written about how she'd wake me up in the middle of the night when I was a teenager, and turn on my radio so I could listen to "Mystery Theater Presents" on AM. I wish I'd recorded her reading it to me. But then how could I when she was already reading on my phone. I suppose it doesn't truly matter. I can hear her voice as though she is with me at any given moment.

That was the last time my mother ever read to me.

It seems to be a bit of a cruel twist of fate that just as my nest emptied my last parent also passed away. A strange sort of orphan type feeling. No more mother to read to me and no more children of my own for me to read to.

"It's Mother's Day. You kids be good and get along and help with the dishes!" The yearly mantra of my father, my children's father, and probably most every father anywhere. On my weekly wandering through the garden section of the store, I spotted several daddy's with a child or two in tow. I could see the slightest look of confusion on some of the men's faces. My best guess at their thoughts...."Should I get her flowers? Chocolate? Jewelry? All of it?".....Maybe just a gift card and she can get exactly what she wants....but then maybe she'll be upset I didn't put more thought into it...." I smile sympathetically and then proceed to put a tiny little plant in my cart to bring home for myself.

When I got home from the store, pulling up the driveway I noticed my rhubarb plant had a few stalked ready to harvest. Few things scream "Spring" the way rhubarb does.

I made some rhubarb custard shortbread bars with my little harvest, adding a few sliced strawberries to make up for my tiny crop.

Next up is Father's Day. Maybe I'll celebrate that by watching a Clint Eastwood western and reading a good war-time mystery book at the same time while eating a Hershey's chocolate bar; with almonds. It would be so much more fun and certainly easier than trying to be a good girl.