Curfew and Stuff

“Speak now or forever hold your piece.” This was my mother’s favorite saying when she knew she was winning an argument. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I asked how she was spelling piece or peace. Being an educator, she broke into explaining, although sounding alike. Stop, mom, stop… I meant when you use your favorite phrase, “Speak now or forever hold your piece.” Which way are you spelling it?

Well, it depended on the situation…

P-I-E-C-E a portion, a single slice of a whole—generic conversation mode without actual purposes. Mostly to throw off the person you’ve been talking to. Sometimes, that piece was appropriate. Here’s an example, remember how I would give you a long list of chores to do before you could have an extension on your curfew on a Sunday night, and when you would say that it was too much, I said, hmmm, continue and you’ll be home debating with me or take the hour I granted you. I wasn’t being mean just to be mean. I don’t believe a young woman needs to be out past eleven with a man that isn’t her husband. Maybe that was a barbaric way of thinking, but that was the rule that I was expected to follow when I was dating, and I think it is still an appropriate rule. I’m not going to apologize for thinking of your virtue.

Sometimes this peace was the one I used:  P-E-A-C-E, your inner joy, your happiness. Peace is an elusive concept when you’re a parent. Every time your children walk out the door, you worry. You hope they remember their good manners. You expect the people they hang out with aren’t influencing negative actions. Every parent wants their child to come home safely every evening. There’s nothing scarier than to be awoken hearing the phone ring at 11:30 p.m. and the voice on the other end saying your daughter has been in a car accident and has been airlifted to the University of Virginia hospital in critical condition.

Well, I guess I just was a cutup, destined to mess up. Just like I did, getting pregnant at fifteen because I was too scared to ask for birth control. Instead, I bought or stole over-the-counter suppositories that didn’t guarantee one hundred percent protection. I didn’t set out to defy you or your rules, but the teenage mind doesn’t think past the moment. I know now that you would not have had three grandsons if anything had happened differently.

 Thinking about the day or so before I left home and I declared I’d never be like you, I apologize because I am sure I need to eat those words. I didn’t at ten understand why as soon as we got home in the evening, you were leaving for school. Why did you need to go back to school when you had a job, actually three jobs? Working for the Pairs, driving the school bus, and being a wife and mother. It wasn’t until I was pregnant with the last one that I started to understand. I was struggling with the pregnancy and had to quit lifting. Of course, bosses don’t care; if you can’t do what they want you to do. They won’t fire you straight out; increase your requirements. Leaving me only two choices keep risking my life or quit. So, in my last trimester, I was taking nursing classes.

After the baby was born, I did daycare until I started going stir-crazy. One day on my way to class, a friend told me they would hire me if I came to drive the school bus. So, I first needed to get my original driver’s license since I never even took the driver’s ed class in school. It’s so funny because it almost didn’t happen. I failed the road test twice. I could not figure out what I was doing wrong. Frustrated, confused, and crying, trying to check the mail, I encountered my next-door neighbor at the mailbox. She asked me why I was teary-eyed. I explained that I had to get my license to apply for a job that day. After laughing at my plight, she spun me around, handed me the keys to her car, and explained that I was driving a familiar car, so I was probably doing the same thing I always did; jump right in and go. First, forget to do the basics: check mirrors with the instructor in the passenger seat. I thought for a minute, and it all made sense. I hugged her and returned to the DMV; forty-five minutes later, I left with a huge smile and a newly laminated driver’s license. After returning her car, I was happy to call you and eat crow.

I knew then what you felt when I received my Commercial/ Chauffeur’s driver’s license (CDL). As I left DMV, I felt glad you had taught me a good work ethic and proud to have passed the test. I also understood your need to better or fulfill a dream of your nursing degree. I was so proud when I found that picture in your file box. You and your class are in your pristine white uniforms. The caption read: Congratulations to the graduating class of 1977. I didn’t understand why you didn’t tell dad and I so we could have been there. I regret that I figured this out too late to apologize correctly.

I’m sitting here beside your rose-colored casket, talking to your lifeless body, as if I need to know that you forgive me. I wish things hadn’t been so strained for those many years between my growing up and our reconciling. We lost too many years of laughter and love, and I missed the wisdom you could have shared. The boys knew of you but didn’t know how much fun you were. My oldest one lost two of his grandparents in 1995, you in April, and his father’s father five days after his thirteenth birthday.

*****this story is true and written on the 25^th anniversary of my life-changing accident*****