That Was A Mouthful!

Don’t talk while the flavor lasts. Mom said this to indicate talking with food in your mouth was not polite. There was also sanity in the message for her. Roughly translated, she was letting me know if I talked before the flavor was gone, my lemon drop might fall to the ground and get all full of dirt. The ensuing tantrum would be something she would have to deal with. One of Jenny’s and my favorite laughs together is the time Bett and Belle were very excited about something at the dinner table. They both started talking at once. Both had food in their mouths. Being a mom with manners in view, Jenny insisted, “Don tak wif yu mofful!” all the while maneuvering her hot bite of sausage to get her sentence out. She and I made eye contact and started to laugh!

Mom also always cautioned, “Don’t run or you might fall”. She knew I would fall. My upper body always gained momentum faster than my feet. Running usually meant I broke my fall with my forehead! The ensuing tantrum was something she would have to deal with.

Don’t interrupt your elders! This was a strict rule and was not to be broken! Why the latest scoop on Mrs. Peabody’s husband returning home long past the dinner hour was more important than: “1) the toilet was running over again, 2) the cat just got hit by a boy on a bike, 3) your dress is unbuttoned for three buttons” I’ll never understand. Nevertheless, I perpetrated the same stricture on our children and our grandchildren. Standing at the grocery one day chatting with someone I had not seen for several years, Bett waited patiently for me to get on with life. As I started to walk from the spot we’d been visiting, I noticed a spill on the floor. Joshing Bett who was newly potty trained, I said, “Oh, Bett, did you wet your pants?” She solemnly nodded. My bad! I asked her why she hadn’t told me she had to go to the bathroom. “You were talking,” she whispered. I apologized to her, arranged for someone to wipe the spill, and hurried her home. I later explained that if something was very important, she was to touch me and say, “very important”. You know neither she nor her sister ever abused the privilege. Why could I not have learned that one earlier? My sister, Pat, also waited dutifully while Dot’s fiancé chatted with Dad. When there was a break in the conversation, she said, “Your car is rolling down hill!” By the time she was able to tell him it had quite a head start on him and this was Polk Street Hill we are speaking of. He made a dash out the door and down the hill, flinging himself head first through the open driver’s window and hitting the brake with his hand to keep his car from meeting disaster with a neighbor’s parked car.

Respect your elders. There’s another one. Yes, there is something to acknowledging years add knowledge and some wisdom to a person. They have been where a young person has not. We had a neighbor who yelled at his wife, ignored his children unless they were doing something annoying to him, and insulted my sister and her son. There were other elders in my lifetime that showed little or no reason to be respected. I can think of several supervisors that also fell into that category. Give respect where respect is due but accept the fact that some people will not either deserve nor attain your respect. If you cannot respect them you can ask God to help you stay out of their way.

My Aunt Jo was a resourceful woman. When my dad’s brother Ted died at a young age, Jo was left with a small child and not much to live on. She went to school and learned to be a teacher for children with Down’s Syndrome. Children tended to like her. She would put her purse on the floor, point to two pockets and say, “You may play with my car keys and any happy surprises you find in those pockets are yours to keep; but you will not touch anything else in that purse!” The keys were fun, and the candy and gum she had put there along with a few things like Cracker Jack rings etc. were a delight. She was caustic, harsh, and coldly calculating with adults. I think she had mellowed a bit when I was allowed to dig in the purse pockets, but not much. When Pat had been at that age, however, Jo had caused a fair amount of problems between Dad and Mom and she was a favorite to neither of them. Pat refusing to check out the pockets said to her one day, “My mother doesn’t like you so I don’t like you either and I won’t look in your purse!” I wasn’t born yet so I don’t know the outcome of the exchange. I do know that whenever it came up Mom was embarrassed, but Dad thought it was funny.

I don’t even want to go down the road of: “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about”, or “There! (after a swat) Now! Stop crying!”, or “If you keep scowling your face might freeze that way”, or “Cat got your tongue? (yuk!)”, or “Stop laughing! You’re just being silly!”

Where do we get these sayings? If I was overly giggly, which I often was, Mom would say, “After the laughter come the tears!” I have no idea what she meant. With her German upbringing, I suspect she meant that life is full of laughter and sorrow. For the longest time I thought it meant that when I laughed hard I usually wound up laughing and crying at the same time. That still happens to me now and then. My cousin Frieda was easy to make laugh. Once you had her laughing it was easy to reduce her to helpless hysteria with laughter and tears simultaneous with wetting her pants.

I particularly remember working on an art project. It hadn’t gone well and my teen frustration level had risen to high anger. Pat was trying to get me to see it wasn’t worth the anger. Something she said struck me funny, and the laughter led to tears and then all was going on at the same time. I couldn’t catch my breath, my throat hurt and I was choking. Mom got me a cool wash cloth and told me to hold it to my face until I could calm down. I was finally able to remove the wash cloth, dry my eyes and breathe. Dad came from the bedroom where he had been taking his every-evening nap, and said, “You really shouldn’t do that it isn’t good for you!” Mom, Pat and I exchanged looks and I was in as bad straits as before! If only he hadn’t said anything!

Early in our marriage, having one of my fits of hysteria over something, Dave, stepped close to me and asked in a very worried voice, “Do you want me to slap you?” He looked so stressed at the thought, and sounded so hopeful he wouldn’t have to go to that extreme. Of course, he shortly realized he had made things worse. Dave and our kids learned the best thing to do is let me get it out of my system without helpful comments on their part. We were in a restaurant when Helen was around ten which would have made Marc about six. We were looking at the menus and we were on a vacation so had been driving pretty much all day. Marc looked over his menu with very serious brown eyes intently staring at me asked, “Mom, are you intelligent?” I didn’t even have time to take in a breath. We all laughed, but I couldn’t stop. I was wiping tears out of my eyes and gasping for air. The waitress came and they all gave their orders. She looked at me and Dave said, “She’ll order when she gets it together.” The waitress left our table looking like the men with straightjacket in hand would be a comfort to her. Their food was brought, and I was finally able to ask for something to eat. The whole time my insides were being bounced with laughter, they had continued their conversation and sipped their drinks and waited for me to get a grip. Marc’s question was raised because Dave and I had been discussing Intelligence Quotient and the fact that both my sister, Dot, and brother, Ev, had extremely high IQ’s (as do Dave and his siblings) but no common sense. Marc wanted to know if I am like my siblings. I don’t think my IQ measured as high as Dot’s or Ev’s, but I have my share; I was also blessed with a bit more common sense!

The reason this has come to mind? I’m not sure. I have been reading Scripture in a new way. I have been looking at what God says and incorporating His actual words intentionally into the prayers I pray. I have always included the verses that came to me while praying, but this is actually seeking out His words to apply to specific need for others or for myself. God does not ever tell us not to cry but He does tell us how to look for the reason we are crying. He doesn’t give us silly platitudes nor threaten us with a better reason to cry. He asks us to evaluate our part in our sadness and then confess it, ask forgiveness, and be forgiven. If our tears are not our own cause, He promises He will take care of the issue. He tells us not to be afraid but He knows from time to time we will be very afraid. He doesn’t tell us to turn out the light, close our eyes tight and just ignore the fear. He tells us He is the light, He will never leave us or forsake us, and to keep our eyes focused on Him and all will be well. He does not tell us all will be rosey; He tells us all will be well. For true wonderment of someone experiencing that type of sense of wellness, look up the story and the words for the hymn It Is Well With My Soul. We humans know how to spew forth comments and conditions. God doesn’t comment and He is unconditional. He asks one thing. Believe that Jesus Christ is the answer God promised way back in Genesis to a fallen Adam and Eve. Believe that when we acknowledge our helplessness to save ourselves, tell Him, and ask Him to manage our lives better than we have; He will step into our hearts and show us His amazing ways.