“Allan,” my mother said, “he can’t go to school like that,” pointing at my hands.
We were sitting down to breakfast one December day before school, a rare occasion for my dad and me. Usually, he had left to go hunting or work already and I didn’t care much about breakfast, my 9-year-old life being preoccupied with more important things, like taking care of the animals I had brought in from my trapline.
“He has trapper hands,” Dad replied, “they’ll clean up after trapping season.”
“Well, they are disgusting, and he should be embarrassed,” Mom retorted.
“No, he shouldn’t; it’s just a part of the process,” Dad said in defense of the two offending appendages whose lines, cracks and calluses were embedded with muskrat muck.
Setting or checking traps for water sets required digging for “runs” or setting in muskrat push-ups (houses) and one removed gloves to keep them dry while rooting around in the wet vegetation and waste that composed part of the little furbearers’ lives. Although he never said it in so many words, Dad had taught me by example something I have held dear; nothing in nature is dirty.
It never surprised me when Mom would react that way to what I did, being dirty, filling my pockets with small bladdered toads, handling snakes that had a peculiar odor, or ratting around with the farm animals. I figured that was to be expected from “girls.”
I did believe that was one of the reasons my mom didn’t seem to like me very much. It seemed reasonable when we kids would take the weekly bath, and yes, that was real; my mother would inspect me and often send me back to the tub. My brother and sister never had that problem. They would dutifully attend church and Sunday school and even seemed to enjoy it.
I thought of it as another version of the prison I considered school to be and Dad had my back, as he did in most things, and told Mom that I would learn a lot more going hunting, fishing or exploring than I ever would going to church, knowing there was no chance I would pay any attention.
My arrival into the family came a year after my brother. Dad had recently returned from military service in Germany and had taken over my grandfather’s farm. The ramifications of that existence never occurred to me. My life had most everything a young boy could revel in. Animals to care for, country to roam, and a dad who supported my spirit.
Probably not so much for my mother, stuck on the farm raising two boys, taking care of all things associated with homemaking. It only recently occurred to me that she never had the outlet of the outdoors, a genuine love of something that made life a happy place. Instead, stuck on the farm, I expect she lived a life of quiet desperation.
Worse, and another reason I thought she didn’t like me much. My health was poor during my early years, in and out of hospitals for childhood maladies, my first memory is of standing in a hospital crib conversing with the sisters at the Catholic hospital where I was interred at the age of 9 months. Weeks of multiple trips to the doctor added to the stress and about the time that got a bit better, my sister appeared.
She was a young mother struggling through the existence of small farm life that while offering a wonderful lifestyle, left little in the way of financial security. This is particularly true when your son, having lived through his early years, then commenced to injure himself in all sorts of creative ways that, like chopping two fingers of my left hand nearly off to see what my new hatchet could do, led to more medical expenses.
It only recently occurred to me, and I imagine because it always benefited me; none of that kept Dad from the constant hunting, shooting, fishing, or whatever else took us away from home and to the outdoors, while Mom kept the home. That’s what moms did, it seemed. It was just the way of it.
Through those years, my parents fought often; it seemed they were so often at odds that I wondered if they even liked each other very much. Maybe they were prisoners of their youthful choices. Whatever it was, after 38 years, they chose to divorce. Within a year, both remarried to childhood sweethearts, and both seemed happier than any time I could remember.
Perhaps when parents of adult children divorce, there is always some division and side-taking. Never being much for drama I didn’t involve myself in their business. But Mom seemed unable to let the past go, and when we spoke, it always ended up badmouthing Dad. But Dad and I had that hunting partner bond that often trumps most things, so Mom and I didn’t talk for 20 years. We never fought, I just distanced myself.
When Dad left early a couple of years ago and I went south to handle the affairs, my brother and sister took me to visit Mom. At first, she didn’t recognize me, and then squinting like old folks do, she said, “Are you my son from Alaska?” What I could not have known came to light and choked me up a bit. She had been following me and loved the things I wrote about.
Mom always had a great sense of humor, and she and I shared a delight in saying things that shocked most folks, and we had a wonderful visit. A blessing, given the ugly horns of dementia, had begun to sprout from her. Grateful to have had that time, I left for home knowing I probably would not see her again.
A few weeks after coming home, my brother called to say Mom had been in the hospital with the beer bug and had quickly gotten tired of the process, ripped her IV out, and stomped out of the hospital. My heart soared. Her red-headed spirit had surfaced at the best possible time.
Christine hadn’t been able to meet my mother, but I told her of our conversations and her recent recalcitrant behavior at the hospital. Of course, it would be Christine to recognize something that escaped me for years.
“That’s where your spirit comes from,” Christine said.
On Christmas Eve, Mom was hospitalized. She fought the good fight, refusing to give her dignity away, and as nature intends, left for the peaceful time of the afterlife.
After all the years, I understand. It wasn’t that she didn’t like me; it was that I had something she wanted perhaps more than anything. Freedom. The hallmark of individual existence. What will haunt me going forward is I never said, “Hey Mom, come climb this mountain with me.” I think she would have.