Breakfast
and ma’s kitchen complicated my life. I could have been on time for school had
it not been for that. Today I realize that ma loved me and just wanted to see
me at least once a day, because I was always disappearing, usually with the
dog, the cat or the chickens or whatever sideline amusement was available to a
child constantly on the lookout for pleasure and adventure.
You can add
another appellation, “moaner”, because I was always moaning that it wasn’t fair
that I had to comply with all ma’s demands; I always moaned in a long drawn out
voice: “oh Maaa”.
Life could
have been smooth and cool. My opinion was that my mother was complicating a
life that could have been lived simply without the drama caused by her insistence,
every day, on eating breakfast, lunch and supper.
She was “one
helluva cook”, using my brother Raymond’s rather crude but suitable expression.
I always had the feeling that Raymond only said this out of politeness but I
really did like my mother’s cooking.
He still is
a polite person. Not like me; I never thought of politeness or diplomacy, I
said what I thought. I never said anything bad about Ma’s cooking but then I
never gave her the pleasure of hearing how much I enjoyed it. A little regret I
have but that was the way I was. Perhaps that’s the reason why Ma considered me
an ungrateful little B…..
Actually Ma
accused me of having all the negative characteristics it was possible for a
person to have. Her favorite was that I never think before I speak.
Nevertheless
I appreciated her superhuman efforts to prepare food for the family every day,
three times a day. She carried out the task as if it was ordered by God.
My wife,
Ettie has this tendency also but I try my best to dissuade her. She knows that
I don’t like a fuss in the kitchen and that beyond doing the dishes or
preparing myself a cheese sandwich or a cup of coffee I don’t enter the
kitchen. Perhaps it’s a kitchen phobia that I developed from seeing Ma day and
night in that Bl….. kitchen.
In spite of everything
I adored her, even though I didn’t put it into words. It was my own secret. Now
I know that life would have been more pleasant for me had I revealed my
feelings to her.
In those
days, in our family anyway, I grew up thinking, wrongly, that those direct
complements shouldn’t be said. It never even occurred to me to show Ma affection,
certainly not my old man that really seemed ridiculous.
Now I
realize that was an abnormal situation. It’s different with my kids now. I
never stop telling them how wonderful they are and I mean it, I’m not just
being polite or kind. I don’t stop telling them how much I love them and how
much I love my wife. It took me many years to change and even now I can’t say
that I’m fully recovered from the wrong concepts about expressing feeling that
I grew up with.
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