Mothers…

What is the earliest memory you have of your mother, or father, for that matter?  But since Mother’s Day is almost upon us, let’s focus on her…

I have vague memories from very young, but the first clear memory is of me hiding from her in the garden area behind our house in Rouvrois sur Meuse, which is about five miles north of St. Mihiel in the direction of Verdun, in eastern France.  I was about four at the time.  If you are a student of history, particularly World War I, those names will be familiar.  The garden was rectangular and had a wall around it separating it from the backyard.  There was an opening in the wall at each end.  I was crouched down behind a bush or tree in the corner of that garden watching my mother and someone else walk into the garden calling my name and looking for me.  I don’t remember if that was a good thing or not, but we tend to forget the less pleasant experiences, so I suspect that I’ve repressed the memory of getting into trouble for hiding and not responding to being called.  I must have been an absolute delight to bring up in a foreign land…

Mom, as I later called her, was pretty young at the time – early 20’s.  Dad was in the Air Force and we had joined him there.  That particular European excursion also saw us living in Germany – Mainz, on the Rhein (Rhine) River, and Fürstenfeldbruck, near München (Munich).  She was a long way from home, living with her husband and young son in lands with different languages and unfamiliar customs.  I remember another time with her holding my hand on the side of the main road through Rouvrois as a large group of cyclists flew past, competing in who knows what bicycle race.  I have a vague memory that the reason she was holding my hand was because I had darted out between the cyclists, or had started to.

Yet another time, she and some others were frantically searching for me.  There was a canal behind the property of an older French lady with whom we had become friends.  She raised rabbits and Mom was concerned that I might have gone to see them, wandered on past and into the canal.  Rouvrois is still a very small community (look it up on Google Earth) and we lived kind of in the middle near the big church.  What I remember of the incident is that, in reality, there was nothing for her to be afraid of.  I was with a friend about my age and another, older, boy – “safe” on the other end of town – jumping from the loft of a barn into a pile of hay on the floor below…

If my children had done even half of what I did…

I am much older and a little wiser now – at least, I hope I am.  I am wise enough to try to honor two great ladies – my mother and my wife – at all times, but especially on Mother’s Day.