A Mother’s Loving Life Lessons
Tales of the Antichrist delivered in sweetness
“When I was a little girl I always thought the Antichrist would come to town wearing black leather and riding on a great big motorcycle," my mother said, laughing quietly at her own childhood misconception. I was four years old and she was in the middle of my daily education on how to live, who Jesus was, what he meant to me and how he could rescue me from an otherwise certain plunge into the burning pit of hell.
It was winter and Mother would occasionally get up to tend the iron coal stove we sat next to, its opening emitting the fire’s glow and the scent of brimstone. To me this did not seem as horrific as it sounds, The instruction was always delivered with gentleness and love as she cradled me on her lap. I knew no harm would ever come to me if she held me there. Mother wanted nothing more than to protect me and what better way to protect me than to save me from everlasting torment? I understood that and took the lesson in the loving spirit that it was delivered in.
Looking back, of course, I realize that her eight years of education in a one-room country schoolhouse may not have been sufficient training for her to nurture well-adjusted children. Every day as I played with my toddler sister Rose and every night when I crawled into my bed in my cold bedroom upstairs and hid under a pile of heavy, hand-stitched blankets, I thought about Jesus and the coming judgment and keeping on the right side of Jesus and his father. I knew that someday I would rise from my grave. I'd be put on stage in front of everyone in the world who had ever lived. I would answer for all my sins, all my transgressions. Everyone would know about the candy I snitched.
If I did right by Jesus, if I was good, I would go to heaven. Heaven was a very special place, not as clearly seen in my mind as hell. But it was a wonderful happy place where I could be with God and Jesus all the time. I envisioned heaven as something like Sunday church where I had to sit quietly and stare at the altar. But in heaven I would gaze onto God's magnificence. And there I could have anything I wanted. So to me, that meant toys. I Imagined the angels silently delivering the toys to me as I sat on a folding chair staring at God. I would sit and play quietly so as not to disturb God or the other worshipers. I loved toys, of course, and if heaven was a bit boring, well, it certainly beat burning in hell and being prodded by demons.
The rules for staying on the right side of God and getting into heaven were spelled out clearly enough: don't tell lies, don't steal or fight with my siblings, obey mother and father and stop playing sick to get out of Sunday mass. Sometimes as I worked on my big construction project of the Davy Crockett Alamo with my older brother, returning from school, I would stop and contemplate whether it was even worth the effort of finishing the model. I remember stopping to contemplate an eternity. I imagined it as something like those ramps that you see at the entrance to multi-level parking garages. But this ramp spiraled on and on without end. I would think about myself traveling through a tunnel like that, with no end in sight. Eventually, I would start to get scared and dizzy and go back to playing.
My father was like the God of the Old Testament, powerful, remote, often angry and stirring somewhere above me. To be specific he worked nights and didn't like to be awakened as he slept upstairs. His impatience with us came, no doubt, from finding himself 40 years old with eight children and a boring factory job far from the farm that he loved.
As a child, of course, I had no comprehension of this. I just knew the man upstairs was a force not to be encountered if possible. When my sister and I played we were careful not to do so loudly so as not to bring down the force of this angry god.
The mail delivery came every day just before the big factory whistle across the river blew to signal noon, intruding on our otherwise quiet mornings. Mom would jog across the highway and return with the usual collection of bills and junk mail. The unwanted mail was given to me to play with. Almost every week a certain envelope arrived looking particularly important, a red white and blue border framing its edges. It looked so official and I was convinced that in such an envelope would come the announcement of the apocalypse. I just assumed there would be a government announcement giving us a few days so we could prepare. How one prepares for the end of the world I never figured out.
Mother always said a good boy made a great man. That I was special, that I would grow up to do great things, maybe be a priest and save a lot of souls, maybe a missionary in Africa. It was very important that I always was good and honest and treat everyone fairly, stand up against the evil people in the world like the abortionists and sex fiends, communists and liberals.
When finally awakened by my mother, my father would stride resignedly into the kitchen for his lunch wearing his worn work boots, green industrial work pants and trailing a faint scent of tobacco smoke. Mother didn’t like smoking in the house, so he would go out for a smoke. Once he had taken care of his outdoor animals we would hear the car door slam as he left for work. And we would return to our play with a new sense of calm.
Saturday evenings I got to watch my favorite TV show: Zorro. Zorro was virtuous and fought evil in the world. He had a black robe, something like a priest. But he had the advantage of a secret identity. I wanted to be Zorro and fight evil. Someone needed to save the world.
After the mail came it was time for lunch and then nap. Mom would send us off to sleep by rocking and singing to us in a creaking oak rocking chair. It was an especially intimate and loving time.
Baby sister was first. Mother usually sang and recited the same collection of poems and songs, ones she had learned long ago in the one-room schoolhouse. There was the one about the lady that woke up from falling asleep in the marketplace to find her petticoats and skirt had been stolen by a rag dealer. She doesn't recognize herself. She rushes home hoping that her dog will confirm her identity. Unfortunately, her dog does not know her. There was another dog poem about two puppies that are playing on a log floating on a pond. They fall in and nearly drown. And always there was the one about a boy who dies in his sleep, Little Boy Blue. It tells the story of a boy who needs to put away his toys to go to sleep, kissing them goodbye and promising to return in the morning. Little Boy Blue dies in his sleep and never returns to the toys. They wait faithfully forever, rusting and gathering dust.
Mother always broke down in tears at the end, choking on her words. I was a little boy who had just put away his toys to nap, I cried too. Looking back now some 68 years later, trying to remember through a child’s eyes, I am struck both by the inappropriateness of the instructions and the tenderness with which it was delivered.
Eventually, there were, In total, ten of us kids. Our parents had grown up farming with methods almost indistinguishable from those from the middle ages, believing in a code about that ancient as well. Yet we all grew up to become college-educated, open-minded adults. But keeping our parents' most worthwhile values. This story, this upbringing, laughable in its horribleness, and the subject of many hours of therapy, had its good points. In spite of the damage of putting the terrors of hell into a child’s brain, my parents, both of them, did instill in us some worthwhile lessons. Basically, treat people honestly and fairly: the golden rule. In spite of their flaws, my parents did live that way. And my siblings and I hung on to that part of the lesson, at least. None of us saved the world, But I believe we all grew up to be honest ethical people.
