Mother Memory #3

Fourth grade. The night before the trip to the state capital. We'd had chili. And, as we really don't want details, let's just say I didn't want to eat chili for quite a few years after that night's broken rest.

I had tried to do as I was told--get to the bathroom. My young self didn't think that bathroom = ~30 steps, at least. The majority being over white carpet. Yep.

Memories of that evening are vague. But I do remember my wakened mother (and sister) gently putting me back to bed (or was it bed, because I remember it beginning there...) and cleaning up the various spots and traces all the way down the hall. She must have been so tired. If calculations are correct, she was in the last 1/2 (if not near the very end) of her pregnancy with child #8. Child #8 who was coming at a fairly advanced age (considering typical pregnancy age in these times). How exhausted, how uncomfortable, how...everything she must have been. But she didn't scold me for not staying in one place to make the ordeal easier to clean up. She calmly suggested that next time I not move. I still wonder if part of her wanted to laugh at the bit of silliness that resided among it all.

What I remember most was her tenderness, her caring, her nurturing, her patience. And it didn't end there, as the next morning she was all ready in preparing me for the school field trip--complete with Life Savers holes (my first ever!). Just one time of illness for just one of her 8 children that my mother must have spent innumerable hours taking care of. She truly is amazing!