Tales from a Teacher-Mama

Sarah has some anger issues.

Recently, she got upset because one of the neighbor kids was trying to follow her into the house when she didn’t want him to. I told Sarah that the boy could come in for a minute, and that caused her to redirect her fury at me. She came straight at me across the room, eyes wide with rage, teeth clenched and bared, and her little fist cocked back. When she reached me, she actually punched me right in the mouth.

With my lips smarting, I stood and tossed the book I’d been reading on the floor. I pointed toward the stairs and told her to get to her room and stay there. She went, screaming all the way. Once upstairs she slammed her door a few times, calling down, “Hear this, Mommy?” as if I might have missed it.  She followed that act by throwing a couple of toys down the stairwell–generally in my direction–and shrieked, “That’s what you get for giving birth to me!”

I couldn’t help it–I laughed. She doesn’t have any idea how true that statement is.

When I left work on Friday, my birthday festivities were not over; I still had family fun waiting for me. Later in the evening, I took the girls to the bowling alley where Jeff bought me a drink while he finished his last game. We went home to presents before bed. Jeff got me new sheets and comforter for our bed, which I’ve been wanting for a while. Laura picked out a nice dress for me. And Sarah gave me two bags of Reese’s peanut butter cup miniatures (which she opened the next morning and ate before I was even out of bed).

I made a Nameless Cake (a family recipe that is sort of a spice cake frosted with a sort of mocha-y frosting) and chicken cacciatore. When Jeff got off work, my sister- and brother-in-law were already here for dinner. Despite Sarah being pouty through dinner, we had a nice meal and enjoyed the cake afterward. Tina and Rob gave me a cool picture frame that I’m already planning to fill and hang up. When they headed home, the girls and I played a little Rock Band–Sarah singing, Laura on guitar and me on drums–our own virtual Go-Go’s. I had fun stretching my birthday out over two days, thanks to my wonderful friends and family.

  This was my momma. Ellen Louise Enocksen Lawrence.

On December 1, 1993–fifteen years ago today–at age 47, she died.

Of course I feel sad on the anniversary of her death. She was one of my best friends, and I miss her every day. I feel her absence at every milestone in my life. I wish that my children had had a chance to know her. There are so many questions I never got to ask her, conversations I never got to have with her. It’s a wonder I ever shopped again without her to advise me–sometimes with brutal honesty–on what clothes looked good on me. So for countless reasons and in innumerable ways, I miss her, and I feel sad.

But there are also many reasons I feel happy when I remember her. I can remember her funny ways, her toothy grin, her cute pigeon-toed walk, and her fixation with pinching people’s rear ends. She taught me to love poetry and language. She modeled what it is to love children for who they are, no matter how goofy, annoying or difficult they might be. She brought me to faith in Jesus and shared with me the joy and comfort of faith.

She did all these things and more, literally up to the moment she died. Before her death, she was hospitalized for two weeks. During that time, many people came to visit, and in a few cases it was remarkable how she ended up ministering to her visitors from her hospital bed. One nurse, who had been a high school friend of my mom’s, spontaneously confided in her one day that she got “so angry.” I don’ t know the rest of the conversation, but it seemed helpful simply that my mom was there to listen to her old friend’s distress.

Another visitor was my uncle, with whom my parents had never been close, to say the least. He didn’t live near the hospital but somehow ended up “stopping by” one evening. He stayed for an hour or longer, and I remember my mom telling me how candidly he spoke with her. Usually he tended to talk about his work, his house, his cars; he bordered on bragging. But that evening, he genuinely shared his concerns about one of his sons and compared notes with my mom about my brother, who had presented his share of challenges to my parents in raising him. My mom seemed touched by his visit, and I hope my uncle felt the same.

Silly things I remember from her time in the hospital too. She made up a song about a little red dump truck that she sang often, until she decided that she might just become a country-western singer. She would call herself Winona Butthead, and since she didn’t like to travel, she would take the Little Red Dump Truck on a telephone tour.

My close friends came up to visit, too. My friend Heather was not usually the type for a lot of hugs, so my mom gleefully told her now she had to hug her since she was in the hospital. And Heather obliged. I think she even allowed one of my mom’s infamous butt-pinches.

Before all the visitors and goofiness, though, my mom was first in the ICU on a ventilator for about three days. I thought that alone would kill her–not being able to talk for the tube in her throat! The first time I saw her was hard, hearing the machine tick and seeing her chest rise and fall in time, realizing that she wasn’t even able to breathe on her own. I left her room and went into the bathroom and cried. I cried and prayed, “Please God, don’t take my mommy.” That was the very hardest part: understanding that my mother, who had hardly ever been sick a day in her life, would die. It wasn’t that day, and I didn’t know how soon it would be. But realizing her mortality was even harder for me than her actual death.

Our pastor–one of the greatest men I’ve ever known–also visited while Mom was in the ICU. Out of his conversation with her came my greatest comfort. He asked her if she wanted to die, and with the tube still in her throat she could only shake her head “no.” Then he asked her if she was ready to die. She shook her head “yes.” She didn’t want to leave this world with her family and friends behind, but if the Lord called her, she was ready to go. She knew where she was going, and she was not afraid.

At her funeral, the pastor read her favorite Bible verse, Philippians 4:8: Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. We sang her favorite hymn, Amazing Grace. Ironically Mom had told me just about three weeks before she died that she wanted that verse read and that hymn sung at her funeral. I wonder if she had somehow known that time would come so soon. I was glad she had told me so I knew exactly what she wanted.

Our church was small but not tiny, yet it was filled with people for the funeral. Maybe because it was a Saturday, maybe because my mom was so young. But maybe it was because she had touched so many lives. Our family numbers were small: my dad, my brother and me; my mom’s oldest sister and her husband and two sons; my cousin representing my mom’s other sister living out of state; my dad’s sister and her family; and a handful of other aunts, uncles and cousins. That left hundreds of others of no blood relation. Members of our church. Neighbors. Members and leaders not only from our 4-H club but also from many others in our county, and even from other counties. Avon ladies my mom had worked with. My friends from both high school and college. My brother’s friends. My dad’s friends. My mom’s friends. Some lived only minutes away; others traveled hours to be there. I had only seen the church that full on Christmas and Easter.

When the service ended, my dad, brother and I were the last to stand at the casket for our final farewells. My dad laid a hand on the casket and said, “We’ll meet again.”

And so we will. It’s that thought that has carried me through my grief over the past fifteen years. And time does ease the pain. I try to remember her as she was. As I’ve “grown up” during the years since my mom died, I’ve gained perspective and moved past idealizing her as almost saintly. She was wonderfully human; she was overweight, she smoked, she swore. Now that I am a wife and mother myself, I see other shortcomings in her too. My husband has said he wishes he could have met her, and I think his first question to her would be WHY she didn’t teach me to keep house better. But I love her still. Maybe I love her even more for being able to see her for more of who she was–not just my mom, but Ellen, with all her unique talents and all her imperfections.

Now it’s December 1 again. Over the weekend, I read 90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper. It was good timing; I wonder if I subconsciously held the book for this anniversary. Most of the book focuses on what happened after Don died and was miraculously resuscitated after 90 minutes. What I needed to hear was in chapters two and three where he describes his visit to heaven. Everything was light, and his loved ones who had died before him were there to meet him. It was indescribable joy. There was music that was beautiful beyond words. I believe what he experienced was truly heaven. It makes me smile to know my mom is there with her family and friends and Jesus and the angels, wearing her size 5 jeans and laughing and singing and praising God. She’s not sad that she missed out on seeing her children and her children’s children grow up, but she’s waiting for us. That makes me happy.

She was ready. She’s in heaven. We’ll meet again.

For a long time now, I have considered Easter my favorite holiday, but this year I think Thanksgiving has moved up to the #1 spot on my list. Here’s why: my in-laws.

That may be over-simplifying, so let me explain. Since my hubby and I have had kids, we celebrate the “big” holidays at home, far away from our families in other states. In four of the last five years, we have hosted Thanksgiving with my husband’s family–his dad, one or the other of his sisters and their husbands and our one little nephew.  This year we got them all! One sister-in-law and her husband now live in town (what a blessing for us!), and the other set with their son drove in with my father-in-law.

I love having our home full of family, and this particular group on Thanksgiving always feels so relaxed. I love making casseroles and baking pies, and my husband enjoys deep-frying the turkey. I make recipes that I grew up eating at get-togethers, such as my favorite great-aunt’s cranberry-raspberry jello, so I feel like I’m sharing some of my old family traditions with my “new” family. I feel intertwined. I love seeing my daughters playing with their little cousin and hearing the kids’ laughter through the house. I love having my sisters-in-law at my sides, helping prepare dishes and set the table. I love hearing the “boys” chatting and laughing while waiting for the food to be ready. When mealtime comes, I feel gratified to see everyone stuff themselves and pat their full stomachs with satisfaction. Well, everyone except my adorable nephew who is a picky eater and said he “just wanted to look at the food.” And that’s all he did–he was content drinking orange juice from a wine glass.

Once the kids are put to bed, we typically play a game. This year we played Trivial Pursuit 90s edition, then moved on to two games of Cranium. If you have never played Cranium, I highly recommend it. It’s a board game played in teams with questions or activities in four categories: Word Worm (word puzzles, definitions, and spelling challenges), Data Head (factoids, true/false questions), Creative Cat (drawing–sometimes with eyes closed, or sculpting with clay to convey clues), and Star Performer (charades, acting like a famous person, or humming a tune to be guessed). With such variety in the game, it never becomes stale. We laughed so hard and so often that we had to take breaks to catch our breath a few times. My father-in-law would win the Performer of the Night Award if we gave one; he was supposed to hum “We Will Rock You” for his team to guess, but he opted to act it out (which was really not an option!) by imitating a head-banger. The expression on his face was so priceless that we all laughed to the point of tears; I’m still chuckling to myself remembering it! I think we might have played a third game if it weren’t past midnight with some of us facing work or a long drive home in the morning.

Family, food, and fun–it’s cliche, but it’s why I love Thanksgiving. I deeply feel my blessings with each of my senses: seeing the smiling faces around me, hearing the chatter and laughter, smelling and tasting all the yummy dishes, and feeling the embraces of loved ones. Of course I miss my natal family and wish they could share the holiday with us, too. But this year, with the ten of us, I felt full. My husband’s parents and siblings have become more than just legal relations to me; in my heart they are my family now too. Maybe I can call them my “in-hearts” instead of “in-laws.” Whatever I call them, I love them, and they help make Thanksgiving special, joyful. Being together with them makes me feel very grateful, indeed.

This year, among my many blessings, I give thanks most of all for my family near and far.