Mom's Valentine Candy
Had a memory flash while shopping at Walgreens today. The shelves of heart-shaped candy boxes reminded me how Dad would sometimes buy Mom a pretty box of chocolates for Christmas and Valentine’s Day. These chocolates were definitely and meaningfully for Mom, not for us kids. But Grace Ann, being the kind of mom she was, would say, “You can each pick out two.” And then several days later, “You can each take one.” With six kids, that doesn’t leave a lot of chocolates for Mom. I remember feeling ashamed of myself when I took my two, and then my one — and even more ashamed when I came to her privately afterwards and asked: “Can I have one more?” And she never told me no. “Just don’t tell the others,” she would say in her just-between-us voice, a gift of special intimacy I never would have gotten if I hadn’t been the greedy, pleasure-hungry boy I was. It assured me I was forgiven and almost allowed me to forgive myself. I want to say I couldn’t resist. Those chocolates tasted like they’d come from heaven. And they were offered to us with such a sweet and pleased kind of happiness by our mother, who knew what a momentous and deep delight they were to us, not only for their unordinary shapes and flavors , but because they had come into the house at the hands of our busy and preoccupied father, rare physicalizations of his love, undeniable and almost magically potent in this form. But I knew better. I think we all did. These gifts were for our father’s wife, not for his kids. In a family of so many children, with not a lot of money or free time, such gifts were few and far between. I knew that even a boy should be man enough to say, “No, thank you, Momma. Those are yours.”
But what do I think I would have seen on her face if I’d said that? She would have been pleased with me, yes. She would have complimented my thoughtfulness. But she would have insisted I take my two, or my one, or my one more. She would have been unhappy if I hadn’t.
I wish she’d lived long enough for me to thank her as a man for all her sacrifices, big and small. I think I have to be satisfied with knowing that somehow, moms being what they are, we children were, in our little way, giving to them by letting them give to us.
Beth Ann Pope: Awww. You’re so right. She wanted to share them with you. What a wonderful mom she must have been.
Susan Macdonald Bray: Beautiful Memory. You captured it well.
My Mother, too, passed away young. I was 26 & being the oldest of the Four Children, some of my siblings were still in College. That’s a tough Loss anytime in One’s Life, but harder the younger one experienced it.
Tom Beaver: It’s sad that our mothers didn’t live to enjoy a well deserved break from constant sacrifice.
Celia Schaefer: I have a deep conviction that those who go before us... know. They just know. May be wishful thinking, but I believe.
Tom Beaver: I have that feeling, too.
Bonnie E. Bailey: Beautiful written memory of a Beautiful Lady!!
Connie Patterson: I loved this memory of your mom. She was such a generous person especially of her time. The greatest gifts that she gave me were the time she spent with me one on one. It never ceased to amaze me what a wonderful family we were lucky enough to have been born into.
Tom Beaver: We definitely come from a tribe of men and women who loved kids and getting together with familyRobbie Kunze Humphrey
You know Tom, my father would also get a pretty Valentine heart shaped box of chocolates for my mom. My special memory was going to the store with my dad and he would give me the task of picking out the very prettiest box for mom. They had flowers and ribbons and were the most magical boxes in the world! It took me forever to pick out the very best one for mom! We were lucky kiddos, weren’t we Tom?
Tom Beaver: Yes, we were lucky. Not just in our parents and siblings, but in our place and time. I’m glad to be living in this electronic, multinational-everywhere as an adult, but I’m glad the world I lived in as a kid was simpler, more mechanical, more handmade, the technology more comprehensible, the packaging more luxurious, the commercial art more wonderful, businesses more human-sized, and more things like that. I like that our Missouri childhoods, at least in hindsight, have a lot of that close-to-the-earth color and flavor of a John Steinbeck or even Twain novel — country things and country ways — but also a touch of the space age. Our time and place was neither too primitive or too modern, but just right. I’m glad for all the barns and german accents and farm tools and little country stores, but also glad we grew up as society was getting more open minded, more progressive — with computers (my second favorite thing after books) just a few years away.