The Things You Didn't Say

Dear Mother -

I can’t believe you’ve been gone for so long. Gracious, when I think back on the time it’s been since you left us ....  It seems as though it was yesterday.

Funny, as I grow older, the things I find myself remembering when I think of you. Remember that time when you were sitting on the curb talking to your friend Ruth? I got mad you were not paying attention to me. I decided to run away and I got at least thirty feet before I tripped and fell and cracked my head open. The scar is still there.

This Sunday the gospel text is about Jesus’ telling his disciples he was the vine and they were the branches. He tells them that “Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit ...” For some strange reason I thought about those days on Blackmon Drive. Remember the woods with all those tremendously tall oak trees? Remember the vines that hung from some of the limbs? Remember when I cut one of the vines that hung from a limb and started to swing out over the bank? Remember how when I came flying back to the bank you were there to grab me and pull me back where my feet could touch the ground? 

Funny I would think of that. It hit me that when you found me swinging out over that creek bed, which was no doubt far enough down the slope to have done some damage had I slipped, you didn’t cry out, “Young man, what are you doing?” or “Don’t you have any sense?” or “Am I raising an idiot?” or any of those things other mothers might say. In fact, you didn’t say anything. You just tugged on the vine to test its grasp on the tree and then swung out over the creek yourself.

Sunday a lot of preachers are going to be quoting some of those “Mother Sayings” they find online. It’s things people have heard their mother say. Things like; “Don’t forget to wash behind your ears.” “Are you wearing clean underwear. You might be in a wreck.” “I brought you into this world; I can take you out.”  “Don’t mind me; I’m just your mother.”

I read a few of those lists today. I’m not going to use any of them. Truth is what I’m thinking about this Mother’s Day are the things you didn’t say. Like that day of the vine swinging. You didn’t say what a lot of mother’s might have said. And so, we spent a day vine swinging.

You never said to me, “You could never do that.” when I caught some glimmer of an impossible dream. You encouraged me to work toward it.

You never said, “I don’t have time.” I suspect now, at my present age, you didn’t. But you never told me that.

You never said to me, “That was really stupid.” A lot of the things I did were, but you would never equate bad judgment with a low IQ.

In all the years we shared I never heard you say, “You embarrass me.” But I know I must have. You never said, “Have you lost your mind?” Although I on occasion at least misplaced it.

Of course, there was that day when the principal called and told you to pick up your suspended child. All the way home I kept waiting for you to say something.

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[Rev Kim]

(o)