Saturday, May 12, 2007
Our family is full of new moms this year
Libba Wolfe
Libba Wolfe's column appears twice monthly in Extra.
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“Back story” is a popular media term these days. It refers to the background of a story without which our understanding and appreciation could not be complete.
It’s nothing new in my family. Mama’s stories are convoluted with layers of back story — complications of kinship and situations from years ago. When my husband first joined the family he would listen to Mama’s stories with the “and the point is?” expression and nod his head to hurry her on.
It didn’t take him long to learn that some family stories are like riding an ocean wave. You just try to keep your head above water and trust that eventually you’ll crash on the shore.
I tell you this because you need to know some stories are all about the back story.
The summer I was 5 and my sister Lou was 4, Daddy invited us on a “just the three of us” trip to Myrtle Beach. It was a business trip for him, but Lou and I had never been on a trip and we were wild to think of nights in a hotel and meals in restaurants.
Back story: My brother Clay had been born the March before, and I feel certain Mama put an exhausted foot down and demanded a break. We never suspected who was really having a vacation.
The weeks before the trip, Lou and I were busy earning spending money. The quarters piled up as we emptied wastebaskets and swept the sidewalk for our grandmother and fetched our granddaddy’s slippers. As we understood it, part of the pleasure of travel was bringing everybody souvenirs.
On our way to Myrtle Beach, Daddy had to make business calls in sleepy small towns. While he worked Lou and I would walk around town alone.
Back story: This was the small-town South of the ’50s. As unimaginable as it seems now, we were safe.
In one tiny town we wandered into a fabric store and found the perfect present for a Mama who sewed. On a dusty back shelf we spotted the most gorgeous piece of fabric two little girls had ever seen. It was pale yellow with huge, green, bug-eyed, grinning turtles. Who wouldn’t want a dress made of that? At a quarter a yard, it fit our budget and we snapped up a generous 10-yard piece.
Mama was in a swoon over our gift. We knew she’d love it! She immediately made herself a full-skirted dress and declared it was exactly the perfect dress to wear to the clothesline.
Back story: Mothers in the ’50s didn’t have one pair of good black pants that dressed up or down. Wardrobe categories were numerous and strict — church dresses, funeral suits, carpool coats, house dresses. Even aprons were divided according to occasion. The apron a mother wore to serve sloppy joes Monday night was certainly not the one worn to garnish a lemon dessert for a bridesmaid luncheon.
Lou and I were thrilled when the grinning turtle dress was classified as clothesline attire. After all, with a family of five, including a new baby and no disposable diapers and no dryer, Mama spent most of her day at the clothesline. When the neighborhood kids played in our backyard, we glowed with pride when she appeared in the fabulous dress.
Our family is full of new mothers this year. It is moving to watch them awaken to the shocking realities of motherhood: the fierceness of maternal love and the time and focus that a tiny baby requires.
Each one of them has started down the path toward a deeper respect of their mothers’ and all mothers’ lives.
Where did Mama find the time to make that dress? It has taken me years to appreciate the back story of that beautiful, hideous dress. And to understand how our perfect gift to her was really her loving gift to us.
Happy Mother’s Day.
