When Bern and I had only just started dating which is another story all together, the one thing that was very obvious was the lightness in the house and the constant giggles. We seemed a lot happier and care free.
Bern was walking in town once and the next minute she was standing with her underwear exposed. Her jeans had caught onto a nail which was sticking out of a pole. They had ripped her jeans right up to the waist band to way past her knees. Which was so typical of how life can just throw in a moment of madness when you least expect it. She telephoned but I could not hear a word she was saying because she was laughing and I could hear bits of the conversation:
“Jeans, standing here with my underwear exposed!” It took a while before she managed to calm down the laughter enough and eventually became the need to breathe got the better of her that I managed to get the whole story from her.
When she arrived home she showed me how she had walked back to her car, she was clutching the torn jeans with one hand and the groceries with the other. The description of the long walk to the car, juggling the groceries, dodging pedestrians, gripping her flapping jeans with her free hand was done in such a theatrical style I could visualize the whole walk of shame!
Walking with a funny dance movement her body bent over in a 90 degree angle.
As I sit there and imagined the state she was in I still can’t help but giggle once again. Bern is a very private person and this exposure was just too much for her.
Poor Bern has had to put up with a lot from me and my children.
It was our first Christmas we had shared and we were sitting in our small lounge eating popcorn and drinking wine. Bern was playing her guitar for us wearing the traditional Christmas hat; her niece Shez was staying with us for a brief period also playing her guitar and the mood was one of total joy and peace, my mom was visiting from Zimbabwe. We were singing Christmas carols and going through Bern’s music file and it was one of the most wonderful times of our lives.
Caitlin then decided that Bern did not look Christmassy enough. Before Bern knew what had hit her Caitlin all of 8 years old smeared cream all over her face and plastered cotton wool in big chunks to make the Santa beard.
Bern sat there while the cream dried into this hard paste and kept the beard on until bed time. The itchiness of the cream drying was very apparent but she never once complained and Cait was in her element - this is one of her fondest memories.
During the years we have shared many a fond story and many giggles. I have mentioned my son’s tendency to be accident prone, which explains my rather Large Medical Aid box in my bathroom. However there was yet another time when the Medical Aid box was not enough.
I get that dreaded Please call mes on my cell phone which I have come to dread and fear with such intensity by now that I start looking for my car keys and try to calm my already raging heart beat while I am dialing their cell phones.
“Mom, you have to come home now”” Sarah shouts at me in a very excited and out of control voice.
I manage to decipher that Matt has a big gouge above his eye and it needs stitches. I rush off home, but not before I grab Bern from her desk and we run off in a state of shock and that feeling that hits out pit in our stomach’s is one of OH NO what now.
Bern drives like a mad woman to get home to the children; I telephone Sarah to get more information and to make sure that they have applied the necessary ice and pressure to stop the bleeding as head wounds bleed profusely.
Sarah explains that they were playing around the pool area and Matt tripped while chasing the cat and hit his head on a brick. We rushed off to the hospital and many many stitches later and an empty bank balance we left the hospital and my heart was in serious need of a transplant by then.
I have this ability to cope with trauma and drama, this serene calmness takes over and I face the challenge head on and get through the traumatic experience with the courage of an army and the ability to keep my children calm that I still have no idea where this comes from. My guardian angels I am sure. However, once the drama is over, and everyone one is on the path to recovery, I land up in this puddle of nerves, shaking and needing oxygen and become all feint like those Victorian ladies with their lily white handkerchiefs and little hand fans, so gentile and helpless. I am then in the emergency room lying on a bed while my blood pressure tries to settle, my heart beat is so elevated that I am sure the other patients can hear me down the passages.
It was only years later in one of our family confession times, you know what I mean - when as you know there is something that is not quite right in the family, but cannot put your finger on it, but the family is out of sync. We call a family conference and I look at my children and Bern’s Niece and utters these words that all children dread to hear.
“We are not angry, but we are disappointed; just tell us the truth and will be no consequences later; we promise to be fair and promise to listen; but there is something you need to tell us and we are not idiots so don’t treat us as such!”
They sit there, mouths open in shock and that OH NO WHAT DO THEY ACTUALLY KNOW? Look.
You know that saying, be careful what you ask for because you may just receive it. We most certainly did not expect the revelations and the truths that came flooding out of their mouths.
What is so funny is that we were aware that they had not been up to mischief and knew about the odd cigarette taken from our box of cigarettes and the odd class bunked at college, but it was like we had opened the rivers of Babylon and what was revealed was enough to make my hair turn white.
We sat there and as they unburden their hearts we kept our faces straight and looked as if we already knew all this and I would add the odd AND WHAT ELSE…as if we already knew (which we most certainly did not) to the conversation hoping and praying that there would be no more revelations but with 5 teenagers, you can only imagine what they got up to while we were at work. We all remember how we behaved while our partners were at work and thank my lucky stars that my parents never found out what I got up to as a teenager.
During this unburdening and cleansing of their souls, Bern and I sat their dazed. What was revealed in one of the many situations was that in truth Matt was not chasing the cat when he cut his head open. I knew there was something odd about the story of how he cut his head open as he is an avid animal lover but did not think to investigate further. I was more focused on getting his head stitched. He and Sarah had a brick tied to a rope which was tied to the gazebo outside by the pool area at our previous house and were swinging it at each other.
Yes as we all know this was an accident waiting to happen, Matt was distracted by the something in the garden and was not paying attention and the brick hit him at the speed of a bullet and cut his forehead open and the girls came up with their explanation of the events. They realized that Bern and I would not be pleased at their irresponsible behaviour. So they came up with: - Matt, the cat, tripping, hitting his head and thus the need for stitches… Why they were throwing a brick at each other I do not even want to try to understand, and I hope to this day not to be told that they were actually trying to kill each other!
I never once guessed the truth of all their escapades and all I was asking was for them to own up to the odd cigarette being taken and bunking classes. What was revealed was so say the least not what I expected.
They left the room with such glee and they felt so much better at their total confession all light hearted and big smiles on their faces; but Bern and I sat their stunned at our absolute ignorance and we were horrified at our parental abilities or lack thereof as the case may be. We sat there, staring at the walls like those Crash Dummies they use in the adverts. We were speechless and the children slept the sleep of the innocent as we had promised no repercussions we were unable to react.
The children had no idea what we knew before the meeting and what we had discovered and once they started it was like removing the cork from a bottle of champagne that had been shaken. As their words and revelations came tumbling out it felt like a waive tremors after an earth quake.
You think I would have learnt my lesson and never tell them:”I know what you have been up to so best you confess now and let’s get this out of the way!” But no I have not learnt by my mistakes and I am sure for years to come at family get togethers more will be revealed. My only hope is that by that time I am so senile I will not understand the words coming out of their mouths!
Oh the joys of being a MOM!!
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