TERRY MOSHER
She lived for her family, church and in the spring and for her garden alive with bright colors and fruitful food that wound its way to the dinner table, along with the blackberries on the hillside and blueberries buried along the Northern Pacific railroad tracks, the peaches and apples from the trees that shaded her from the blistering sun when she had time to relax in a lawn chair.
And the relaxing time came only after a full day caring for her five children and the home she shared with her loving husband.
Life was good. Evenings were spent visiting cousins and aunts and to the zenith radio whose tubes shined the only light on a darken evening on those gathered around it while listening to Fibber McGee and Molly, The Fred Allen Show, Jack Benny, The Great Gildersleeve, The Green Hornet, The Inner Sanctum, Jack Armstrong, the All American Boy, The Life of Riley, Lum and Abner and many, many more.
It was quiet now except for the voices coming quietly from the radio box. Even Peanuts, the dog everybody loved (and still do), was quiet, nestling her head in the wicker chair that was hers and hers alone, and others were quickly shooed away if they dared head for it to sit down.
Peaceful. Stillness of the night with the moon highlighted in the waters of the Allegheny, fire flies flashing their white light on and off like a blinking light into the soul, strangely secured those in the family home with anything and everything.
Soft hands button up the boy’s winter coat and stretched those light finger gloves over his small hands to ward off the winter cold and the snow that gripped those brave enough to wander into the frozen land.
Canasta around the large round dinner table, dishes cleared and its top wiped clean before the cards were placed on it. Mama winning more than the little boy liked, but somehow it was all right and gave him security knowing that there was no gloating, no pounding of those small hands on the clean table in exhilaration of her many victories.
Fooling her that Peanuts was not upstairs, snuggled in bed with the little boy as misquotes smacked against the window screen that kept them from entering the room. She wasn’t really fooled. She knew that her little boy loved the dog, protecting her against all the unseen bogymen that he swore were trying to get them.
Holding his hand in the waiting room as others screamed in the dentist’s work era, telling him with her touch that it was all right, he would be safe from the mean ‘ol dentist.
Mama lying on the sofa, coughing up phlegm without protest, without complaint. No words from the boy who worried secretly and quietly. Then the night she called him into her hospital room, sitting on the bed in nightclothes with long and straight white hair resembling an angel from afar.
The mother consoled the little boy, preparing him to go on without her, loving him forever as he walked slowly back out the door into oblivion. The next afternoon (May 21, 1953) the boy being called out from his seventh-grade English class, family members waiting beyond the door to explain that the angels mama saw the previous night had returned with a free ticket to heaven
And now the night grew noisy. The boy sobbed beneath the blankets as Peanuts tried to understand the sudden grief and nuzzled her nose up against the boy’s damp cheeks in an attempt to wipe them away and bring some relief to the sadness that would hang over his head for the next 70-plus years like a black cloud that just wouldn’t leave.
That day proved life is not fair, no matter what others say. It just isn’t. Life goes on but the boy went on reluctantly, dragging his feet all the way. The tears still come, suddenly like an unexpected thundershower, mixing grief in the waters that flows. There is no Peanuts to dry the tears. She is in heaven with mama, waiting for the little boy with the damp cheeks.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.