New to me ...

Milk. AP photo... is the Got Milk? TV commercial with actress Holly Hunter doing the voiceover.

Apparently this spot has been on air for a while but since I do not watch many programs with ads, or if I do I mute them (the ads, that is ... unless they feature the Geico gecko or the E-Trade baby or a cute dog or a ferret or Johnny Depp), until recently I had missed it.

Miss Hunter's is a voice I do not understand.

Raspy. Mannish. Strangely inflected. 

A near-lethal mix of sandpaper and barbed wire, with a handful of thumbtacks thrown in for optimum discomfort.

Practically unlistenable-to.

Did I mention strangely inflected? What is she SAYING already, and why is she saying it that way?

In the practically unlistenable-to aspect, the Got Milk? voice is very like that of Rachael Ray ... whose unsettlingly hoarse prattle I was obliged to endure today as I waited for my car's oil to be changed.

By the way, why did that take nearly two hours?

When grease-decorated mechanics were standing at the dark openings of their vacant cave-bays, smoking, watching me, when I drove up and walked into the office?

These are questions for the ages.

I went outside to wait.

And why, when I took a seat in the waiting area, instead of being tuned to Turner Classic Movies or even the Hallmark Channel, was the off-off-off-name-brand flatscreen plasma TV on the wall bleating Rachael Ray's talk show?

I thought she was a cook.

Instead she was practically rapping with some Wayans brother or other in what appeared to be a daily spot entitled "Stump the Rach."

???

In which said Wayans brother showed "the Rach" objects that were nearly unidentifiable, and it was her job to identify them.

???

Who watches such tripe in the middle of a beautiful spring day?

Well, if the silly grin on his face was any indication, the guy sitting near me in the vinyl chairs was getting a big kick out of it.

Go figure. 

In mother words

Call your mother. Photo by iMac Photo Booth 2010Conventional wisdom dictates that if you have to ask how much it costs, you can't afford it.

But an apparent inability to "afford" it doesn't necessarily mean that a thing -- or things -- cannot be yours.

TG and I never calculated the financial consequences of bringing four children into the world and rearing them to adulthood.

If we had, after regaining consciousness maybe we would have remained childless.

Which would have been as ridiculous as it is unimaginable.

Just as ridiculous and unimaginable as deciding to wait until all the traffic lights turn green -- and are guaranteed to stay green -- before setting out on a journey of two miles or two thousand miles.

Sometimes it just doesn't pay to count the cost.

We wanted four children and we were blessed with four children: Stephanie, born in 1980; Audrey, born in 1983; Erica, born in 1986; Andrew, born in 1989.

(Immediately following the "me" decade was a "them" decade at our house. I was a regular in the labor and delivery unit of The Community Hospital in Munster, Indiana. The nurses knew me by name, on sight.)

Those things are reason enough.

To this day I remember the joy in Dr. Chung's voice when he exulted at the sight of just-born Andrew: "You've got your boy!"

He had delivered all three of our girls too.

He didn't say the word "FINALLY!" upon greeting our son but I heard it, and I saw it in TG's tear-bright eyes above the surgical mask.

Dr. Chung and his wife, a lovely redhead, visited me in my hospital room, bringing Andrew a baby-blue outfit to minimize the probability of him being obliged to wear his sisters' pink hand-me-downs.

And then there came the task of nurturing three daughters and one son into decent, God-fearing, hard-working, literate, responsible, conservative, compassionate, patriotic, productive grownups.

For their sakes I fervently wish I could have been a combination of June Cleaver, Florence Nightingale, Susannah Wesley and Mary Poppins. 

You know … so as to have been a better example and all.

But I wasn't.

The four who call me Mom. Photo Jennifer Weber Mother's Day, May 9, 2010

Looking back at my own performance as a mother, at times I cringe. I had more vanity than wisdom, more hangups than skill, more determination than expertise, more theories than proof, more questions than answers.

For all my unfortunate lack, I believe I possessed one thing that is crucial to the rearing of excellent children.

That one thing was an understanding of the importance of cultivating a proper relationship to authority.

Maintaining respect for authority is the linchpin of a happy, successful life … no matter how short or how long that life.

By their father.

And it starts with having the utmost respect for one's parents.

Those four who call me mother are not my best friends; they are my children. There is a difference.

Friendship denotes equality, which should never be present between parent and child.

To think of or treat my children as friends would have served only to undermine and erode their natural respect for their mother … a respect that benefits them far more than it does me.

And to engender or encourage disrespect -- however disguised in touchy-feely sentiments of pseudo chumminess -- would be as harmful to them as if, during their formative years, I'd fed them candy for breakfast.

Besides … the "best friend" role in my life was taken long before my children were born.

By their father.

Instead of -- and far better than -- their friendship, I cherish the sincere honor and gracious esteem lavished on me by my children.

It is a respectful love that says less about me than it does about them.

But if I have not earned their high regard by any other means than giving birth to them and mothering them to the best of my dubious ability, those things are reason enough.

And so today I think of the way ten-year-old Stephanie comforted me on that night when, on a long trip, I locked the keys in the van and TG wasn't there to bail me out.

And I think of the considerate and tender manner in which she spoke to me just this morning.

I think of yesterday.

I recall that time when eleven-year-old Audrey was my boon companion as we laughed and sang all the way from Tennessee to Louisiana so that I could visit my grandfather.

And I recall how we laughed uproariously only last week, over some silly thing or other.

I picture the humbly sweet and knowing expression on Erica's tiny face when, at three hours old, she fixed me with a somber look from beneath her pink striped handiwipe-hat.  

And I picture the kindness and understanding evident in her face when she talked with me only three days ago.

I think of the time that Andrew, age two, bravely marched up the steep driveway of our new home in Tennessee, hands thrust into his pockets, looking back with a big smile on his face to make sure I was there and watching.

And I think of yesterday when he came home from college, six feet of handsome tanned young man with a still-dazzling smile, and caught me up in his strong embrace. 

And I thank God for entrusting me with these four exceptional, remarkable, intelligent, bright, beautiful, Christ-honoring children.

Happy Mother's Day!

From cradle to brave

A few of my captives. Photo Jennifer Weber 2010I am always amazed at the bravery of children.

As a child I was not at all brave. In fact, I was afraid of the very thought of the whisper of the rumor of the arrival of the ghost of my own shadow.

I was scared of the dark; I was scared of crossing the street; I was scared of my stepfather; I was scared of my sister; I was scared of school; I was scared of fire drills; I was scared of rejection; I was scared of hunger; I was scared of poverty.

I was scared of being run over by a freight train and being decapitated and drowning in the ocean and being thrown from a moving automobile.

Or any one of the above.

I was scared of gym class and fractions and report card day and Communists.

Reading is a discipline.

I was scared of sudden violence and aching loneliness and dismal failure and grim death.

Come to think of it, I still cringe at some of those things. I won't say which.

The only thing that never made me afraid -- and that always assuaged my fear -- was reading books.

Epic novels, poetry books, short story books, how-to books, picture books, brief books, long books, easy books, hard books, serious books, goofy books, biographies, the encyclopedia … I forced them all to live with me.

Jane Eyre's integrity has inspired me throughout my life … as has Scarlett O'Hara's feistiness and Melanie Hamilton's goodness and Elizabeth Bennett's prejudice and Kira Argounova's loyalty.

I have modeled my own romantic passions after the desperate love of the second Mrs. DeWinter for Maxim, of Countess Olenska for Newland Archer, of Cathy Linton for Heathcliff, of Scarlett for Ashley, of Dominique Francon for Howard Roark.

The poetry of Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and James Dickey and Theodore Roethke and W.H. Auden -- to name but a scant few -- has shaped my sensibilities in more ways than I could ever express.

When children -- and adults -- watch television, they become complacent.

With few exceptions, television is designed to denigrate rather than elevate the mind.

When we read a book -- even if it isn't classified as "great" literature and even if we don't fully understand all the words -- we become brave.

That's because reading is a discipline.

You gain a vision where there was none.

It requires courage to turn your back -- even for a few hours a day -- on TV, movies, games, handhelds, cell phones, iPods, and the Internet.

But if you turn toward books for those few hours a day, purposely turning everything else off and shutting everything else out, reading transforms you.

Books acquaint us with ideas. They put us on intimate terms with our beautiful language that lends life to those ideas.

Even if time allows only a sip here and there, every minute you turn to a book you become stronger, wiser, more imaginative, more intuitive, more analytical. Your ability to conceptualize increases. You gain a vision where there was none.

Nearly four decades ago my mother gave me a thin volume of verse by a relatively obscure Georgia poet. This morning I spent a half hour enjoying that book.  

Here is one of the things I read, possibly for the hundredth time:

++++

When you and I have grown too old for loving

The first slow tide of dawn across the dark,

Too old to pause, bewildered, when a lark

Plunges its arrow of music where we are roving;

When the first rose of April fails to quicken

Our pulse and hold us speechless for a spell,

And we are tired, too tired to sit and tell

Love's words again, and watch the bright stars thicken, --

When comes that hour and the spirit sighs,

Though still we talk as one who understands,

Feel summer's sunlight and the winter's knife,

Ah, little do we know that all of life

Will lie upon a bier with folded hands

And silent lips, and pennies on its eyes.

++++

I rest my case.