Mom is singing with the angels

By John Estridge

Let me say up front that everyone’s mom is special.

I know that. I understand that.

My mom passed in her sleep in the early morning hours of June 10, 2020. And we believe she is still dead.

I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but people who knew of mom will understand that statement. Mom experienced miracles at about a miracle a minute. Before I get into that; however, let me relate a few memories of my mom.

For several years mom has not been able to call on her memories. When My Long Suffering Wife Ruth and I would go visit, mom was always very gracious, but she had no clue who we were. She had learned to play along and not outwardly show she did not know people, but she told others she did not know us, but she thought we were a nice couple. I really liked that.

When we would get to see mom, I would always introduce myself as her favorite child. This would bring mom’s always-ready smile to the surface. While I said it to elicit that smile, there was more than a little truth in that statement. I am the baby and the only son: got to love me.

Mom was a stay-at-home mother during my early years, which were in the long-ago time of the early 1960s. Preschool was a much longer period of time back then. Kindergarten was reserved for rich kids, and I was anything but that when speaking in monetary terms. But mom made my preschool years very rich and lustrous. I have nothing but good memories of those years.

My days would begin in front of the TV. My morning, after my Cream of Wheat, consisted of Uncle Al, Captain Kangaroo and cartoons when cartoons were cartoons, and they were able to carry guns and blow stuff up. I watched them religiously, and, to this date, I have not become a serial killer, although in the last couple of weeks, I’ve been sorely tempted.

About lunch time, mom took over the TV and except for when President Kennedy got shot, soap operas trumped everything in the world. They were Guiding Light, Search for Tomorrow and As the World Turns. Mom did not just sit and watch. She worked the entire time, but her chores were done in front of the TV except during commercial breaks. She often did ironing in that time. With three young children, it seemed like laundry was never ending. She had a wringer washer and a clothesline. As an aside, my sister Karen knew the clothesline well. Karen was so wild as a child, mom would put a leash on her and hook it to the clothesline when mom had to be outside. Just saying. But it did keep Karen alive as Karen was quick and would run out onto U.S. 27, which was just beyond our front yard.

Mom would allow me to iron dad’s handkerchiefs, and I also helped her fold clothes. However, and Ruth will be amazed by this, I often caught her refolding whatever I had folded. Ruth does that now. Some simple skills just don’t come easy for me.

When I wasn’t slowing mom down on her chores, I played. I still have not tired of playing.

For the time, mom was a really lenient mother. And as all who know me can attest, I did not get spoiled by that attitude.

She allowed me to play basketball in the house. During the winters, and it seemed much colder then, I had bad tonsils so I was kept inside. During the summer, I did not see the house’s interior except to eat and sleep. But during the winter, I would play indoor basketball. My parents’ house was sort of a shotgun house. Inside the front door was the living room. Next was mom and dad’s bedroom and that led to the kitchen and the backdoor. The bathroom was off the kitchen. My sisters and I slept upstairs. They got the good room, and I was stuck in the junk room. It was my first taste of seniority and also of gender bias.

I would set a clothes basket before the entrance to the kitchen and another by the front door. Those were my goals. I had a dime store ball that pretty well fit my hand, and I played against imaginary people. I also had imaginary teammates. I was a little kid so my shots often went high and wide while my passes could be off the mark or the more likely culprit was my imaginary teammates had bad hands. This led to breakage, at times. Mom never got upset.

My favorite sedentary game was a miniature pinball-type game called Bazooka. One shot marbles from a plunger-like device and gravity took the marble down where it could land in different slots worth different points such as 500 or 750 or 250. I always wanted to keep score whether it was basketball or any type game. So, I would put the scores my marbles made and then take my paper up to mom to add the numbers.

She soon tired of that. And while I was still 4 or 5, she taught me math. She told me the key was to keep my numbers straight and then it was all counting. She taught me how to carry over. She was a really good teacher. She made it seem simple, which was good for me. Thus, before my first day of grade school I could do addition of three and four column numbers.

I said mom was lenient, but she did have a temper. Usually, the words “wait till your father gets home” were said often, at least in my case, and usually that phrase was not an empty threat. When dad got home from his factory job and mom carried through on her threat, dad would make us cut our own switch from the hickory tree in the backyard. This was often times worse than getting the paddling. If one did not cut a switch that met dad’s expectations, then he would cut one, and nobody wanted that. So, one would have to find a switch that might not hurt too bad, but would hurt enough to pass the executioner’s inspection. That, in itself, was torture. Then, we got switched.

There were a few times mom took matters in her own hands.

Woodruff’s Supermarket in Liberty had both a front and a back entrance. We usually came in the back entrance. It had – to a youngster’s point of view – a long, steep ramp from the backdoor to the grocery store itself. It was made for boys to jump on the back of the shopping cart and ride it to the bottom. It was like sledding without the snow. Of course, I was not allowed to do that. But I dreamed about it every time we went in that backdoor, and that was at least once a week.

One week the temptation was just too great and before mom could do anything, I was off.

I once taught my daughter Katie how to ride a bike by pushing her down a steep hill at Whitewater Memorial State Park. When I let go of Katie’s bike, I thought to myself, “this is not a good idea.” By the grace of God, Katie survived without being maimed or disfigured. I had that same thought as I kept gaining speed on that shopping cart. I had no idea what I was going to do when I got to the bottom. I saved myself by hopping off the back of it and doing a rather good roll. The kart went on at a high rate of speed to an unknown ending.

Mom’s hand grabbed me off the floor and jerked me to my feet. I thought she might want to check for injuries and I was trying hard not to cry. But when I saw her face, I cried very hard. She paddled me really good. To make matters worse, it seemed every person in the store had stopped to watch, which they probably did.

It is amazing at the change in times from then to now. She would probably be arrested now, but those adults in that store all were shaking their heads in agreement to the extent of the whooping I was getting. However, the other kids in the store were more than a little pale thinking that could have been them, because I know every kid fantasized about doing what I had just done.

Fast forward to when I was about 15 or 16. Mom was driving, and we were going to Oxford for some reason. It was winter. There had been a wreck on U.S. 27 on the Oxford side past College Corner. Traffic was backed up. We finally crept past the wreck which was off the west side of the road near those grain elevators.

As others, during their high school years, I knew every student’s vehicle they drove. And when we went by, I was very happy none of the cars belonged to classmates. I verbalized that to my mother saying “good, it’s not anybody I know.”

I have never been a good fighter. Unfortunately, there were times I could not outrun people or talk them out of a fight, and then — on those times – I got my butt kicked. However, during those – it’s hard to call them fights as I really didn’t fight – let’s just call them beatings – I have never been hit as hard as my mom did that day after I uttered my statement.

It was an open-hand forehand slap to the side of my head. My head bounced off my passenger door window. I am happy the window did not break, because she hit me so hard I would have probably become a projectile ending up in the wreck as another victim. I saw stars. I saw colors. I am sure I had a concussion. It was by the grace of God it was not a skull fracture.

Mom said in a very unmom-like voice: “somebody knows them.”

Ruth reminded me of that the other day when I was reading an Indiana State Police press release about four people dying in a wreck on Nine Mile Road in Union County. I said “Good, it’s not anyone local.” And Ruth, without a moment’s pause, said “Did you forget about what your mom did?”

Mom was still alive at that time but was severely weakened. However, I believe if I had said that in her presence, she might have had one of her miracles just to slap my face one more time.

Mom had a heart attack when I was 16, which would have been 1973. Hopefully, it was not the slapping incident which caused it. Her family has a history of bad hearts. It seemed like she did not have long to live. Well, here we are now.

In the years between now and then, and I know I’m going to leave some miracles out, she survived a bypass surgery in Wisconsin when most everyone had written her off. She had an artery nicked during a stent procedure, and it was very much touch and go during that event.

She had a brain stem stroke where the neurologist told us it was time to pull the plug because there was no brain activity. We told her to hold off until the next day so we could sleep on it. Karen and some of mom’s grand kids spent the night with mom, and Jesus made an in-the-flesh appearance.

The next morning, much to the neurologist’s dismay, mom was joking around with that wonderful smile of hers plastered on her face. She was bothering everyone for a cup of coffee. When the neurologist told me this was not possible, I told her it was a miracle of God. She got really angry and said there is no God and there are no miracles. Fortunately, I have never seen that woman again.

There are really too many medical miracles to repeat, but I think it was last fall or winter, Linda told me to get to Columbus in a hurry as mom might not make it through the night or even the next hour. We sat by her bedside. She was seemingly unconscious and her heart rate was going from 115 to about 40 in the time it takes to talk about it. It continued up and down like a singer doing scales. Even though she was on oxygen, she was gasping for breath. One of Linda’s granddaughter’s, Jordyn, spent the night with mom. Around 5 a.m. the next morning mom asked a nurse for a cup of coffee.

Even with this last instance: When Linda, John, Ruth and I went to see mom, she could not wake up and seemingly did not know what was going on around her. Of course, with this stupid virus stuff, we could not touch her, hug her or kiss her, but talked to her through an open automatic door.

However, just a short time later she was eating orange popsicles and asking if she could see her boyfriend Donnie.

I was kind of shocked when Linda told me mom was dead, going in her sleep. I felt like asking Linda if she had checked to make sure.

But mom has had such a rich and wonderful life. Her character, her faith, everything about her has positively affected so many people. She loved to sing, and was singing the last time we were physically able to see her, the weekend before the shutdown. I asked Linda what mom was singing because I had never heard it before. It was Red River Valley. I had to Google it. The most famous rendition of the very old song came in the 1920s. Where or why it appeared in mom’s brain that day, I do not know.

But today and for the last few days mom is singing with the angels all the hymns she loved to sing and also, in case they don’t know it, she will teach them: Red River Valley.