My mother would have been 92 had she lived until January 16th of this year. Our mother/son relationship had its ups and downs, and of course, as Proverbs 22:15 (KJV) says, “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.”

If “rebellion” could be substituted for “foolishness”, I suppose this would have been true for the length of her life in my case. As for the rod part, Mother was not handy with the switch. She said she only whipped me one time, but I don’t remember that. Mother had more psychological ways of dealing with her errant youngest child.

Mother had her sayings. When she would tell me something that I did not readily accept, she would say something like, “If you get your butt burnt you’ll have to sit on the blister” or “if you can’t listen, you’ll have to feel” or (my favorite) “you’ll remember this when I’m gone”. Believe it or not, she was right on all three counts.

Not long after she died, I had a dream. I was on an educational trip in Chattanooga with a room to myself. Mother appeared on the foot of the side of the bed I was not occupying, standing on her knees with her mouth bound in duct tape. She was moaning like she was trying to say something. I said, “Mother, what’s wrong?” She vanished from my site. Was she trying to remind me of all the things I would remember after she was gone?

Mother said I was the only one of her children that ever caused her worry. Begging her pardon, but I find that hard to believe. I remember once that her other son ran his hand up to the wrist in her wringer washing machine. I remember that caused her great stress. And when her daughter divorced her husband and “went off up north”? I seem to remember that preyed heavily on Mother’s mind as well.

So what did I do? Practically nothing before my college years. During my college years, I was on my own at school, and thankfully (at least part of the time) she had no idea what I was doing while there. She would have been grateful to know that it took me quite a while to learn that I could come and go from the school as I pleased, at all times of the day and night, though my opportunities were somewhat limited, as I had no car on campus the first year, and no money to buy fuel the last three years when I did have my own transportation.

Mother’s great worries over me seemed to start when I moved back home after college. All of a sudden I was home, employed, with the means to travel as funds allowed, at all times of the day and night after work.

Mother wanted to know where I was every minute of the day, and I wanted to be recognized for the independent adult I had become and not have to account for every minute of my time outside of work. She especially was suspicious of every female friend I had. She viewed any female acquaintance as a threat that I must be protected from. Threat to what, you might ask. I suppose one of the greatest was to our mother/son relationship.

I had one female friend who accrued Mother’s wrath because Mother thought I was being seduced. It made no difference if this was willingly on my part or not. In that particular case, Mother hung up the phone every time this lady called the house.

When Mother knew who I was visiting and had that phone number, she would call and tell me when she thought it was time for me to come home. Of course it was embarrassing to be in my twenties or thirties and have my mother call and tell me it was time to come home.

On one such occasion, I told my friend to tell Mother that she had not seen me since I left her house. Of course, I was sitting right there. When I got home, Mother let me have it. I let her know I was sitting right there when she called, and for some time after, and that I came home when I was ready. Now did Mother get mad at me for this? No, she got mad at my friend, who she had liked (at least a little), for lying to her. It seemed no matter how much worry I caused her, Mother never got mad at me. My shortcomings were always someone else’s fault.

And I suppose that love lies at the heart of all mothers—the desire to see their children as perfect, only corrupted by others in this wicked world. As aggravated as I would sometimes get at her for being so restrictive and overprotective, even to her dying day, I would take her back in an instant could she been young and pain free.

Mother was not overjoyed when I established a relationship with the woman I married. Time did softer Mother’s heart toward what would be my other half after she passed away. She told me before she died that she was glad I had found someone that would take care of me after she left.

Between Mother’s death and my marriage, I dreamed that the family was passing Mother’s casket for the last time before she was loaded into the hearse for her final earthly journey to the cemetery. As each of us passed by, she left each of us with her final words. I said, “Bye, Mother.” She said, “Bye, Ronnie. Now you get married, you hear?” (Was this her curse breathed on me from the Great Beyond”?) Knowing Mother, I’m sure this was her way of telling me to be sure that I had someone to take care of me.

Now Mother is in a far better place, and as King David said when the son he conceived in adultery with Bathsheba died, “But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.” (II Samuel 12:23) Someday we’ll be together again, and, as one of her favorite songs says, she “won’t have to worry anymore”.