Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: BURIED (04/01/21)
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TITLE: Digging Up Memories | Previous Challenge Entry
By Linda Lawrence
04/07/21 -
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It was very seldom we had alone time with each other. Dad insisted on her always being available to him. I don’t know why since he showed no pleasure in her company. I never heard him compliment or thank her. But, on this day, Dad was occupied and a gift of unexpected freedom allowed us to take off on a spontaneous day trip. Mom could show me the town where she grew up.
Nearing Redlands, Mom’s thoughts turned to her youth. “I wonder if Margie still lives there.”
“Who’s Margie?”
“She was my best friend and a bridesmaid at my wedding.”
“Would you like to see her again?”
“Oh that would be wonderful if she’s here, but it’s been thirty years.”
“Well,” I said. “We could find a service station and check a phone book. Want to?”
“Oh yes! Could we?” Mom’s face glowed, reflecting her surprise of not having her wish denied.
Forty-five minutes later we were seated in a coffee shop across the table from Margie. Most of their reminiscing was about mutual friends and their weddings. Maybe my presence kept the conversation from getting personal. I noticed there were no references to their marriages. I wondered if that was because Mom didn’t want to confess that the handsome “christian” man she married turned out to be an obstinate agnostic who resented Mom’s love for Jesus. Dad was more polite to me, his adult daughter, but still made it clear he thought faith in God was foolish—a crutch for weak women. Determined to not let thoughts of Dad’s hardened heart ruin this short time with Mom, I focused on our ongoing conversation and delighted in Mom’s girlish laughter.
The spur-of-the-moment visit with Margie was short but sweet and gave me a glimpse of Mom as a girl bride, full of romantic hopes just like her girlfriends.
Back on the road again, we found Mom’s childhood home. It had lost its neighborhood charm, due to the encroaching freeway, but still evoked nostalgia. She reminisced about her mother and sister but was especially wistful when speaking of her kind, gentle father. Her mother and father loved each other deeply and Mom spoke of assuming her marriage would be the same.
Mom’s cheery stories of hanging wet sheets on the porch for make-shift air conditioning and Sabbath afternoon drives into the country were enlightening. But the stories’ brightness dimmed with memories of her father’s early death from lung disease and her mother’s valiant struggles to provide for her girls on her own.
Mom’s mood abruptly changed. “We’ve seen enough here.”
Back in the car I asked, “Is there anything else you’d like to see?”
She sat quietly for a while and then, seeming to surprise even herself, said, “I’d like to find my daddy’s grave.”
“Why not?” I grinned. We would probably never be here again and I wanted Mom to be satisfied with the visit. We stopped for flowers and directions and were on our way.
It took some hiking through the cemetery to find her father’s grave, but when we did I stood back on a knoll, to let Mom have time alone with her beloved daddy and her memories. I watched her kneel and set the flowers down beside his headstone. Then suddenly, surprising me, she picked up the flowers and called out, “He’s not here. He’s with Jesus! Let’s go home.”
On the ride back a long-buried heartache surfaced. I wondered if Mom was talking to herself or to me as she whispered, “I knew education was important to Mother. I know Daddy would have wanted me to finish high school! But Mother let me drop out of school and marry . . . because she was afraid I’d get in trouble.” She looked up at me. “But I was a good girl!”
“You think she didn’t trust you?” I asked. “Is that what hurts so bad?”
”Yes,” she sobbed. “But if Daddy had been alive, maybe he would have . . . known it wouldn’t be a good marriage. . . protected me. . . I was a good girl!”
Mom and I both lacked a godly father’s spiritual guidance. But buried beneath the sadness of that common ground, we had both discovered the same precious treasure—the gift of knowing a Heavenly Father who never left us or disappointed us.
It was time to sing again.
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