A Mother's Day Memory

On this Mother's Day, I thought I'd share the following memory.  In 1980, on one of my days off, my mom called and asked me to come over.  She found a couple of audio cassette tapes and wanted me to listen to them.

"What are they?"  I asked.

"Just come over."

I can't say I was enthusiastic.  I was twenty-two, on my own, and the last thing in the world I wanted to do was visit mom.  Not that I was doing anything important.  Honestly, it was a Sunday and football season was still a couple of months away.

Still, I went.

"All right, what am I supposed to listen to?"

She pulled out a couple of cassette tapes and motioned for me to sit down at the dining room table.  The cassette player was already there waiting.

My mother was anxious, but I took a minute to pour myself a Pepsi.

I sat down.  My mother pushed the play button.

I heard my father, who had passed away the previous year at the age of 48, playing his guitar and singing.  Though I could play the guitar myself, we hardly ever played together because with a couple of notable exceptions, my father's musical taste didn't run this side of Sons of the Pioneers and his politics made true conservatives seem liberal.

Just hearing him for the first time since he died was eerie enough.  But the song he was playing and singing made my jaw drop.

Through the speakers came a nice rendition of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind."

A 60's protest song.  My father detested the hippy movement and the war protesters.

I shook my head and smiled.

The second tape Mom wanted me to hear was made in 1968, the year my father had a massive heart attack.  Even though he was a mere 37, the doctors only gave him a 10% chance to survive.

"I'd forgotten about this," she said, popping it into the cassette player.

Back then, Mom had sought out the guidance of an astrologer, an old man a family friend recommended, and recorded the reading.

I listened to an hours worth of chills.  The old man told my mother not to worry, that my father's chart showed that he would survive.  He went on to say, though, that a time was coming in my father's future that looked particularly bad.

"Mid June 1979," the old man said in a raspy, quivering voice.  "You must be ready."

My father died June 16th, 1979.

And to all the mothers out there, I wish you a HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY.