on tah

This last week, Bryan and I went on a vacation to Washington DC. (More to post on that later). We had the opportunity to stay at a lovely boutique hotel that was the childhood home of Al Gore. Part of the hotel's charm are rooms that are throwbacks to the 1920's or 1930's. One thing included in our room was an old fashioned alarm clock. This alarm clock charmingly ticked away each second for us so that we would always know as each second passed us by. About three minutes into the room, I declared the alarm clock banished, and it was stuffed in a drawer under a blanket. I do not like clicking, ticking, tocking noises. This includes clanky fans, silverware scraping, and especially ticking clocks. As I banished the clock, I was flooded with a memory of my mother, a memory of something for she did for me that is so small I am not sure she remembers but so characteristic of that certain love that really only a parent can experience.

The year is 1996. I have just broken up with my first boyfriend (who proved my parents right by being very bad news). My parents decide that I need to experience a little bit more than what I have seen in small town Texas thus far, and so they sign me up for a mission trip to Zambia.

Because I was only 15, my mother was not comfortable with me going alone; thus, she and I both signed up for our first trip out of the country. I could talk all day about how that trip continues to have lasting influence in my life, but instead I want to talk about a moment I had with my mom.

Mom and I did not always, shall we say, see eye to eye when I was a teenager. Those years were tempestuous, as we were [are] both very strong willed. But, I don't remember fighting with her on this trip. Here is what I do remember: there was not much space in the missionary compound, and Mom and I had to share a bed. For some reason on this particular night, we knew that we had to get up very early the next day, so my mom set her alarm clock. And, you guessed it, it was the loudest ticking clock on the planet. Perhaps my memory is simply fuzzy, but I don't recall being overly sweet or adorable in my complaints to my mother about the infernal thing. But, instead of upbraiding me or ignoring me, my mom simply put the alarm clock under her pillow so that the sounds would be muffled from my ears.

She put it under her pillow. A big boxy alarm clock. A big boxy alarm clock that ceaselessly ticks the seconds away. A big boxy alarm clock that ceaselessly ticks and then at some point begins to relentlessly clang.

I should also mention that my mother has supersonic hearing. She takes cottonballs to movie theatres to stuff her ears and drown out the sound and refuses to watch TV with my dad on a regular basis because she feels he watches it too loud. My mother is not a noise person either.

But she did that. For me. Without complaint. Without ever bringing it up again. That night of what must have been very restless sleep became an incredibly powerful testament of a mother's love for this daughter.

I hope as a mother to follow her example and show my children my love for them with similar reflexive acts--unpremeditated moments that are simply and willingly borne out of love.