Mother's Days

When my mother was a little girl, she had a pet chicken. The chicken slept in the bed with her when she visited her grandparents’ farm. Later, she had a pet goat that chased cars. When I think of that goat chasing the occasional car driving down an isolated country road, I have to laugh at the memory of a mother I didn’t know until she grew up, got married, and had me.

I guess she had to turn into the sort of mother that let us keep every cat that wandered into the yard. We kept hamsters, cats, fish, homeless baby birds, broken-down earthworms, and the occasional common roach. The only time Mama ever raised her eyebrows was when I arrived home from Woolworth’s with a white mouse. It was only fifty cents, I told her. How could I pass that up?

The last time I talked to my mother on the phone, she was excited about some small creature that had crept into her yard. She didn’t know what to call it, but from the sketchy description I assumed it was either a chipmunk or a mole. Perhaps a stray ground hog. She didn’t think it was a possum, but for all I know it was. There was a time when Mama could name whatever it was that came into her yard. Now it’s up to me to fill in the blanks.

Sometimes I want to get frustrated with Mama, who is so independent that it’s hard to convince her to turn her into a compliant old lady who does whatever her children tell her to do. I guess the same woman who inspired me to hold out for my own independence all these years isn’t going to let age or a little frailty hold her back. And I can’t stay frustrated for very long.

Who wouldn’t love an 82-year-old woman who puts water out for wild rodents and feeds lettuce in jar tops to lizards on her sun porch? My mother has always loved lizards. One winter, a lizard took up residence in a potted plant and stayed there until spring. That was in the first house she and my father lived in, a small house in the country they moved to when they started having children and outgrew a small apartment. Mama still has a bird nest she’s kept from that house. It has weathered fifty years and a numbers of moves.

Now Mama lives in a small house in a city. In March when I went to visit her, I didn’t tell her I was coming. I’ve always loved to surprise her that way. I found her in the yard clearing out branches from an ice storm. She may need to hold onto my elbow when we walk through a shopping mall, but on her own turf she is sturdy and strong as an ox. Unlike me, she weeds her garden. Unlike mine, her fig tree grows like a dream.

Once Mama told me that if she could live her life over, she’d be a farmer. Not being able to live out her dreams, she has done the best she could with a backyard in the city. Now my brother helps her to break up the soil, but she does most of the work. She’s happiest out there in her sun hat, weeding or studying new growth. The mocking birds and mourning doves follow her around like great-grandchildren while her cat watches from the porch. There are no goats or pet chickens, but there is a sanctuary for all kinds of creatures great and small.

Felicia Mitchell. First published in Washington County News (Abingdon, VA), 5 May 2004, p. A6. WCN is a publication of Media General Operations. Copyright 2004.