I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Tag: mother’s day

  • different war, different century – same Mother’s Day yearnings

    different war, different century – same Mother’s Day yearnings


    Pretty’s family isn’t big on specific dates so we celebrated Mother’s Day Wednesday with our family. Does the day really matter as long as someone celebrates, remembers, keeps a tradition of a mother’s love going…eleven years ago I published this post about a young American soldier in France in the 20th. century during WWI who tried to comfort his mother on Mother’s Day from a place that existed only in her imagination.

    ***********************************

    The handwriting on the letters has almost faded away, the yellowed paper and envelopes  so torn and fragile I’m afraid to open them for fear they’ll disintegrate. The dates of the letters are in May of 1918, which I calculate to be 95 years ago this month. They are three letters written by a young Marine serving “somewhere” in France in World War I to his mother who evidently thought they were worthy of saving. Pretty discovered the letters  when she was on one of her fishing expeditions for treasures in old houses.  Occasionally on her adventures at yard sales or estate sales she finds words for me to read – words that someone saved for a reason. No longer wanted by family, they’re sometimes stuck inside the pages of books she buys or in a little box or even in a scrapbook tossed aside as unimportant. I don’t think the names are necessary but I will say the mother lived in Indiana. I’m glad she thought her son’s words were worthy of saving. I believe they’re worthy of being read again.

     Somewhere in France,  May 12, 1918

    Dearest Mother,

    Today is “Mother’s Day” – your day – and I wish I were home to spend the day with you.  Altho I cannot send you a big box of flowers I will endeavor to send a little flower that grows near me on a green hillside.

    I hope you are well and happy today.  Of course I realize how you feel about me being over here, the two battles you have to fight, that is, keeping up a brave front and smile when I know you feel bad about me.  Mother dear, I really am safe and the best news I get from home is that you are well and enjoying life. I would rather hear that you enjoyed a good show, say once a week, than to hear that you had denied yourself one little thing to help the Cause along. I sort of figure that you have done your bit, so please try to have a good time and remember that I don’t fare so bad.  It isn’t nearly so bad here as you all imagine.

    We eat, sleep, read magazines, letters and roam around to see everything going on. We aren’t getting any furloughs at present. I mean my outfit, but maybe it won’t be long until we can go touring again. I’ll have many stories to tell you when I get back, and I’ll trade stories for some good pies & cakes – and any eats at all that you cook. We move so much that I thought I’d have to throw away some pictures, but I’ve found a way. We always find a way. It seems a necessary part of a Marine to get along most any old place and get along well.

    I sent a list home of some things I want – and you may add on to that list a few pounds of homemade candy, preferably fudge. I don’t care how old fudge gets, it is always the best tasting eats we ever get from back there. I can buy French candy & chocolate at the Y.M.C. A. huts, so you see that we really don’t suffer for those things, but nevertheless some good old homemade candy is the stuff.

    I write you once a week, when possible, as an answer to Dad, Sis & your letters so they must not feel slighted, but this is your letter, and nearly every mother who has a son in France will get one too. Spring is coming in very beautiful, but the rain is so frequent here.  After a big rain the sun pops out with a blue sky and green hills – then everybody is happy.

    I tried to subscribe for one of the 3rd Liberty Loan Bonds but they aren’t selling them here.  I would like to have one of each issue. I have no kick coming about getting mail now as it is coming pretty regularly.  I’d appreciate some of those fried chickens you spoke about but I think I’ll wait until I come home.

    Well Mother dear, next Mother’s Day we will celebrate properly and have a good time.

    Love to Dad & Sis, and you…

    Your loving son, Buddie

    *********************************

    Not all sons and daughters become soldiers who are stationed in foreign countries on a different continent on Mother’s Day, but the yearnings for connection to home and family are universal regardless of time or place, seen or unseen.

  • different war, different century – same yearnings


    Danger, danger, danger – where are our safe places, our safe people, our safe distances from our safe people in our safe places…to mask or not to mask, that is the question. But of course we are not the only generation to wage war against enemies seen and unseen. Seven years ago I published this post about a young soldier who tried to comfort his mother on Mother’s Day from a place that existed only in her imagination.

    ***********************************

    The handwriting on the letters has almost faded away, the yellowed paper and envelopes  so torn and fragile I’m afraid to open them for fear they’ll disintegrate. The dates of the letters are in May of 1918, which I calculate to be 95 years ago this month. They are three letters written by a young Marine serving “somewhere” in France in World War I to his mother who evidently thought they were worthy of saving. Pretty discovered the letters  when she was on one of her fishing expeditions for treasures in old houses.  Occasionally on her adventures at yard sales or estate sales she finds words for me to read – words that someone saved for a reason. No longer wanted by family, they’re sometimes stuck inside the pages of books she buys or in a little box or even in a scrapbook tossed aside as unimportant. I don’t think the names are necessary but I will say the mother lived in Indiana. I’m glad she thought her son’s words were worthy of saving. I believe they’re worthy of being read again.

     Somewhere in France,  May 12, 1918

    Dearest Mother,

    Today is “Mother’s Day” – your day – and I wish I were home to spend the day with you.  Altho I cannot send you a big box of flowers I will endeavor to send a little flower that grows near me on a green hillside.

    I hope you are well and happy today.  Of course I realize how you feel about me being over here, the two battles you have to fight, that is, keeping up a brave front and smile when I know you feel bad about me.  Mother dear, I really am safe and the best news I get from home is that you are well and enjoying life. I would rather hear that you enjoyed a good show, say once a week, than to hear that you had denied yourself one little thing to help the Cause along. I sort of figure that you have done your bit, so please try to have a good time and remember that I don’t fare so bad.  It isn’t nearly so bad here as you all imagine.

    We eat, sleep, read magazines, letters and roam around to see everything going on. We aren’t getting any furloughs at present. I mean my outfit, but maybe it won’t be long until we can go touring again. I’ll have many stories to tell you when I get back, and I’ll trade stories for some good pies & cakes – and any eats at all that you cook. We move so much that I thought I’d have to throw away some pictures, but I’ve found a way. We always find a way. It seems a necessary part of a Marine to get along most any old place and get along well.

    I sent a list home of some things I want – and you may add on to that list a few pounds of homemade candy, preferably fudge. I don’t care how old fudge gets, it is always the best tasting eats we ever get from back there. I can buy French candy & chocolate at the Y.M.C. A. huts, so you see that we really don’t suffer for those things, but nevertheless some good old homemade candy is the stuff.

    I write you once a week, when possible, as an answer to Dad, Sis & your letters so they must not feel slighted, but this is your letter, and nearly every mother who has a son in France will get one too. Spring is coming in very beautiful, but the rain is so frequent here.  After a big rain the sun pops out with a blue sky and green hills – then everybody is happy.

    I tried to subscribe for one of the 3rd Liberty Loan Bonds but they aren’t selling them here.  I would like to have one of each issue. I have no kick coming about getting mail now as it is coming pretty regularly.  I’d appreciate some of those fried chickens you spoke about but I think I’ll wait until I come home.

    Well Mother dear, next Mother’s Day we will celebrate properly and have a good time.

    Love to Dad & Sis, and you…

    Your loving son, Buddie

    *********************************

    Perhaps next Mother’s Day we will all celebrate properly and have a good time without fear of the invisible enemy that attacks us through the Covid-19 virus. Ironically this letter written in 1918 by a soldier looking forward to the spring in France was a Marine who had no way of knowing a pandemic that would sweep across the world was about to begin. The Spanish flu or the 1918 influenza pandemic began in the spring of 1918 and lasted through the summer of 1919 with an estimated 500 million confirmed cases according to Wikipedia. Did Buddie survive both the war and the virus… I wonder…

    Stay safe, stay sane and please stay tuned.

     

  • tis the season


    Mom’s 80th in her church fellowship hall in Richmond, Texas

    Thank you to our mothers for giving us birth – not a small feat, sometimes done under the most difficult circumstances – thank you for your daily sacrifices made on our behalf, for sharing our joys, sorrows, achievements, failures, dreams, fears…for being with us in sickness and health. We celebrate you if you are with us, and we honor your memory when you are gone.

    Stay safe, stay sane and please stay tuned.

     

  • the photo finish


    I wrote the following story in February, 2012; it was first published in my third book, I’ll Call It Like I See It, and was reprinted with my permission in an anthology entitled Mothers and Other Creatures. I think of these two women, both of whom I loved dearly, especially at Mother’s Day but truly every day…

    The Photo Finish

    In 1965 when I was a freshman in college my parents bought their first home ever in Rosenberg, Texas, after almost twenty years of marriage. My dad was the assistant superintendent of the local school district and my mother taught second grade in one of the elementary schools in the district. Since I wasn’t living with them, I’m not sure how the decision was made to hire someone to help with cleaning the bigger new house, but when I was home for spring break, my mom introduced me to Viola, who was hired for that purpose. When I returned to stay the summer with my folks, Viola was gone.

    I never knew what happened to Viola but was so self- absorbed I didn’t really care. Early in the summer Mom informed me we would have a new woman who was coming to work for us and encouraged me to keep the stereo at a lower volume on the lady’s first visit. I was in a Diana Ross and the Supremes phase and preferred the speakers to vibrate as I sang along but I obligingly lowered the level for our potential new household addition.

    I needn’t have bothered. Willie Meta Flora stepped into our house and lives and rocked all of us for more than forty-five years. She became my mother’s truest friend and supported her through the deaths of her mother, brother and two husbands. She nursed my grandmother and my dad and uncle during their respective battles with mental illness, colon cancer and cerebral palsy. She watched over and protected and loved and cared for my family as she did her own, which included five daughters and two sons and an absentee husband. In many ways, we became her second family and she chose to keep us.

    Willie and my mom shared a compulsion for honesty and directness that somehow worked to keep them close through the good times and the hard times in both of their lives. They were stubborn strong women and butted heads occasionally, but most of all, they laughed together. Willie’s sense of humor and quick wit kept Mom on her toes and at the top of her game in their talks. They also shared a deep love for the same man, my dad. In her own way, Willie loved my dad as much as Mom did, and my father loved her and loved being with her right back. His death broke both their hearts.

    Although Willie kept her own apartment, she and Mom basically lived together in the years following the death of Mom’s second husband. Mom planned her days around the time near dusk when Willie would be there to spend the night with her. Willie became her lifeline to maintaining her independence, and the two of them grew older and crankier as time passed. Willie and I talked on the phone frequently, and she began to tell me she was worried about Mom’s safety and getting lost when she drove around town in her old brown Buick LeSabre. I dismissed her fears and ignored the signs of dementia until Mom’s 80th birthday when it became apparent she had major problems in everyday living.

    Not long afterwards, I was forced to make a decision about my mother’s long term care needs and opted to move her to a Memory Care Unit in a facility in Houston which was a thousand miles from my home in South Carolina. Why not move her closer to me? A good question with a complicated answer that included my trying to keep her available to Willie and her family who could drive Willie to see Mom. If my mother could choose between visiting with me or seeing Willie, there was no contest. I would always come in second.

    Mom will be 85 next month and struggles with the ongoing physical and mental battles associated with Alzheimer’s in her ultimate race towards death. This past fall I moved her again to a different residence that is still in Texas but much closer to my second home which is also now in Texas. Alas, she’s two hours farther from Willie, and Willie has only been able to visit her once since her move.

    Willie will be 81 next month. She and Mom have the same birthday month, and now they have the same dementia. We don’t talk on the phone now because she can’t form words I can understand. When I visited her yesterday, she didn’t recognize me and was uncomfortable with getting up out of her bed, just as Mom is sometimes when I go to see her. Willie’s five daughters and three of her granddaughters are coping with the same problems I’ve faced with Mom–trying to keep her comfortable in a safe environment.

    When I consider the strength of these two women and their determination to rise above their inauspicious beginnings in an era when women weren’t valued for their strong wills, I feel a sense of admiration and respect and gratitude for the examples they’ve been for me and for Willie’s daughters, too. We are the children of our mothers and we reflect their strengths and weaknesses in black and white. Theirs was a mysterious bond that we may never fully understand, but the similarity of their physical and mental conditions in these last days is surreal and takes irony to a new dimension. Leora, one of Willie’s daughters, told me recently she thought Mom and Willie just might end their race toward death in a tie. I think it will be a photo finish.

    Willie M. Flora died Saturday April 14, 2012. Selma L. Meadows died Wednesday April 25, 2012.

    It was a photo finish.

    Warmest wishes to all of our friends in cyberspace from Pretty and me for a wonderful weekend. If possible, spend time with your mother. If impossible, cherish your memories.

    Until next time…

     

  • home is where the horseshoes hang


    horseshoes moved in with Pride

    getting ready for summer in South Carolina

    I’m so thirsty…

    hey, can you drink this stuff?

    I’ll give it a whirl…

    OMG, that water was n-a-s-t-y

    “The Calla Lilies are in bloom…”

    Does anyone remember that line from a famous old movie?

    Hint: Katherine Hepburn was the actress who recited it.

    Happy Mother’s Day to every mother wherever you are from the children who were your worst nightmares and, often simultaneously,  your dreams come true. Thank you.