Some of us take our rocks for granted

Fri, May 16 2008

— When we are children, we are usually so self-centered that we think of our mothers as having come into existence when we were born. Oh, we know they had a life before us, but how important could it have been? It was all obviously just a kind of suspended animation until the central happening of their life occurred, which was our own birth, of course. And if we’re lucky, they let us go on thinking that for a while (although some mothers indulge their children long after they should have made them face reality).
But for however long it lasts, the fortunate ones among us have mothers who are the solidest rock of their existence. My father was the glamorous parent. He was the sweet talker, the attention getter, the charmer. He would grab you up and take you to the race track with him or the pool hall, buying you pop and potato chips, showing you off. He would take you shopping and bring you home with the reddest, most expensive coat in the store because nothing was too good for his little girl. He was the sun in your sky. When he beamed in your direction, the world was a joyous place. (In today’s world, when everything has to have a diagnosis, he might have been judged as mildly bi-polar, but back then, we just declared him “moody”).
How could a rock compare to that? It just sat there, plain and dependable as granite. When the sun went behind a cloud, as my father’s mercurial nature dictated that it often would, the rock was still there. You just took for granted that it was your place of safety. No matter how scary the world became. Make it back to the rock and you were home free.
Mom was one of those mothers on whom you could rely to have cupcakes baked if it was your turn to treat even if you forgot to tell her until right before you went to bed. “Oh, by the way, Mom, I’m supposed to take two dozen cupcakes to school tomorrow.” Then you’d go securely off to sleep, knowing there would be two dozen cupcakes waiting when you got up the next morning.
She was the type of mother who would allow you to keep the stray puppy who showed up on your doorstep with you vowing you’d take perfect care of it although in the end, she’d be the one to housetrain it and feed it and take it to have its shots. And in the end, both you and she, and most of all the dog, knew who it really belonged to.
Mom was the kind of mother who’d deliver your papers if you were tired or not feeling so good and let you still keep all the money you earned. She’d sit, freezing or roasting on bleachers, faithfully watching you play even if you spent the whole season sitting on the bench except for those couple times you struck out or dropped the ball when it came your way. She reveled in all your triumphs and sympathized with all your defeats.
It wasn’t until my father died that I began to appreciate my mother and to realize that, in fact, she had had a life and been a real person B.V. (before Vic).
Mom was raised on a ranch in the high desert of Arizona, homesteaded by my grandparents. They lived in tents at first and Grandma cooked over a campfire for a family of five until Grandpa got the house built, of railroad ties, with a dirt roof. Grandma thought nothing of sending Mom on her horse (cut from a herd of wild horses and roughly broken to ride) to the nearest small town, seven miles away, to buy baking soda or headache powder.
One day, Mrs. Knotbush, who owned the general store, gave Mom some paper dolls that had belonged to her daughter, a girl who had died at 14. What a glorious gift the beautiful dolls, with all their clothes, were to a little girl who had no toys, or even many possessions of her own.
As she was headed back, her horse was spooked by a rattlesnake and took off in a terrified gallop. Mom was riding with Grandma’s sack in one hand and the paper dolls in the other. She knew she’d be in big trouble if she let go of Grandma’s purchases and there was no way she was giving up her precious dolls, so she rode no-handed as the horse flew home, jumping both sides of the corral fence and skidding to a halt in front of the house. Mom dismounted shakily, each hand still clutching its respective sack.
I remember looking at her with new eyes when she told me that story, seeing her as her own self, courageous and strong and talented. But it was even later yet that I realized it was a perfect illustration of who she was. Whether it was bringing home your sack in the face of a snake-spooked horse or baking cupcakes for school, you always knew Mom would never let you down, not ever.
How fortunate all of us who have such mothers are. Too bad it takes many of us so long to realize how beautiful granite can be.
Vicki Williams is a columnist for the Pharos-Tribune. She can be reached through the newspaper at ptnews@pharostribune.com

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