Friends are fun and people one likes to go on adventures with. Whether going on an adventure through one of Mom’s captivating stories or, ad Bob said, “venturing out with the tiger on wheels,” Mom was a fun companion. I had many adventures with Mom, but since I am limited to only one I will share this one with you.
One morning I woke up to discover that I’d slept in. Running down the stairs from my bedroom I hollered at mom, “I’m going to be late—could you please drive me?!” Looking up from her coffee cup Mom said, “Oh Sherry, I can’t, I’m still in my pajamas!” I pleaded, “Please Mom—I can’t be late this morning!” So, realizing my dilemma, Mom grabbed the car keys and, clad only in her housecoat and slippers—curlers in her hair, we hopped into the car and headed down the highway. We turned off the highway and were rapidly approaching the intersection beside the school when I began to be concerned at the speed with which we were approaching. I was thinking, “Sheesh, Mom, I know I’m late but shouldn’t we be slowing down?” Just then I noticed that even though Mom was madly pumping the brakes, we weren’t slowing down! I also noticed a school bus lumbering along and about to collide with us should we keep going the same speed. Thus I yelled, “Goose it Mom!”
Mom tromped on the gas, sending us back into our seats like were were on some kind of circus ride, and as we cleared the intersection just in the nick of time, Mom’s next dilemma was how to get slowed down enough so as not to end up in the trees at the end of the street, for at that time the street beside the school was not yet a through-way. The only thing Mom could do was ‘peel donuts’—well ‘squeal donuts’ might be a better term—until we had lost enough momentum that we could finally coast to the edge of the street and park the car beside the school.
All of the ‘smokers’ used to gather at the end of the school facing the trees, since there were no houses there yet and huts, there was less chance of getting caught. As we pulled alongside the school I looked up to see a line of guys standing there, mouths agape, cigarettes in hand, looking dumbfounded at this spectacle before their eyes! Poor Mom stared wide-eyed ahead and as the reality of what had happened hit home I could read mom’s mind: “How in the world am I going to get home looking like this?” Just then a white knight appeared in the form of Bill Andres, a bus driver. Seizing the opportunity, immediately after Bill had dropped off his kids Mom jumped out of the car, ran to his bus and begged a ride home.
Friends are fun, and yet a true friend doesn’t always say what you want to hear—rather they say what you need to hear.
With the stresses of these past few weeks and as we stood and watched as our beloved Mom lay slipping away before our eyes, and with the reality closing in that she was, in fact, dying, it was difficult not to want to lash out at anyone who might be perceived as a threat to the little bit of strength she had left. In writing my portion of this eulogy, I was reminded of what she would have said to me had she seen my reaction to those around me in my panicked state of mind. She would have said, “Sherry, if I was not responding to those around me with kindness because of my state of being, my dad would say, ‘Madgy, Madgy! It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it!’”
I have learned so many, many good things about life and loving from my mother, and it should only seem fitting that on her dying bed she had taught me yet another lesson to be cherished, and that is, no matter what life brings—be it waking up late and having your day start off bad, or having a child rope you into doing something for them that you would rather not do, or finding yourself panicked because of ‘no brakes’—whatever the case may be, one can choose to act, and treat others with dignity and grace, even when one is facing something as monumental as death.
