Most kids do a pretty good job of making their mother cry at some point in their childhood. Lots of kids make their mothers cry on an almost daily basis. I know my siblings and I occasionally caused our mother tears. Nothing to be proud of, that’s for sure.
My mother has been gone now over 40 years. She died a week after our first born son, Jason was born. I still think of her often, but when I do, I prefer to think of the times I made her laugh.
When I was about two and a half and still living the bliss of being an only child, we lived on my Grandmother’s farm in Alberta near the town where I was born, Islay. On days when my father was working in the fields Mom would pack a lunch for the three of us and she and I would walk out to whatever field he was in to share the noon meal with him.
This one day Mom got busy and nearly forgot about preparing lunch. When she remembered it, she was in a bit of a panic and enlisted my help. At the time we had a tall metal cabinet in the kitchen where many grocery items were stored. Mom spoke to me over her shoulder as she began buttering bread, “get the syrup out of the cabinet, Billy.”
Rogers Golden Syrup was a favorite in those days which, along with peanut butter, on slabs of home made bread, made delicious sandwiches. I, dressed in my fuzzy green hand knit sweater, hurried to the cabinet and managed to get the door open. There it was, the big white Roger’s can, but I guess Mom had not remembered putting it back on a higher shelf than usual.
No problem. I put one foot on the lower shelf, and standing on tip toe, gradually sneaked the big can out to the edge of the shelf where I could get hold of it.
Mom turned just in time to see the can topple off the shelf, lose it’s lid on the way down and land with a plop upside down on my golden curls. She stood frozen in shocked horror as the syrup began to run down over my face and head and onto that fuzzy green sweater.
Regaining her senses, Mom leaped to my rescue and snatched the can from my head, but the sight I presented was just too much for her and she broke into gales of laughter. I stood there quite indignant, covered from cowlick to blue jeans in stickiness, demanding to know what was so funny.
Well, it was with great difficulty that Mom managed to pull herself together long enough to get the clothes off me and get me cleaned up. Dad’s lunch was late to the field that day but Mom had a story to tell that more than made up for it. Ever since then the mere mention of syrup brings back the memory.
I’ll be back with an even funnier memory next time.