Angry child’s moment with Mom a lesson of a lifetime

The sound echoed in the too-hot, stifled room. When I walked in and saw her, everything else melted away. The dirty, cigarette-smoke stained walls disappeared, the lights seemed to dim. The room became a vacuum.

There she was, my mom, all alone and crying and on her knees in the middle of that crappy, threadbare, outdated ’70s carpet. In her right hand she clutched a ball-peen hammer.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

Three perfect little circles remained in the dust on the veneer shelf a few feet above her head.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

Tears streaming down her face, Mom busted those coins loose from their wood casings.

Three Kennedy silver dollars.

Enough for a loaf of bread, a half gallon of milk and some bologna that Jeannine — the strangely-gangly-butoh-so-nice woman with the hairnet that held her terrible wig on tight every day for what had already seemed like a hundred years at the neighborhood grocery, Gus Dick’s — would chip for us instead of slice because the fake meat seemed to last oh-somuch longer that way.

Three dollars. All because Mom had run out of options. And we had to eat.

The family had no more loans, neighbors had no more leftovers. And the boss told Mom that the petty cash box had already been drained.

It was never like this because Mom didn’t work hard. She was a good secretary. Some would say the best. She worked long, steady days.

But there were three of us. And Dad had left her with a mountain of debt. And just a couple of bad habits take a lot cash.

So there she was that day, my mom, on her hands and knees.

I don’t remember exactly what I yelled. But I know I screamed it. And I clawed at her back. It was far more anger than any 8-yearold should be able to muster.

How could this happen? How did we get here? Why did I have to be born this way? Why did I have to be born to you?

Why? I asked. Why do we eat milk-sopped bread for supper, and why do my teachers offer to wash my clothes? Why do kids make fun of me? Why do I have to be poor?

I railed but Mom never said a word. She let me spit out words that seared her soul and broke her heart.

Then, without a word, she stood up, put on her raincoat and headed out for the walk to that corner market.

It was just two blocks away, yet it seemed like an eternity before she returned. In reality, the tears of anger on my cheeks probably hadn't even dried.

Mom came back with those staples, of course, and with something special down inside that single paper sack: a Hostess apple pie. She knew they were my favorite.

I didn't like the apple part. I scooped the chunks out with a spoon and either threw them away or gave them to my brother, but the gooey syrup and the flaky crust left behind were divine.

I hung my head in shame, but Mom pretended not to notice. I ate the treat, and she and I and my older brother went about our day.

By the time morning came, the shelf had been dusted and the collection of ceramic horses had been moved around to fill in those empty spaces.

Thirteen years passed before we ever spoke of that morning again.

I’d had a steady job since I was old enough to work and had helped pay the bills even after I left home. Everyone was getting by.

But now I wanted to talk about it, about that moment, about that day.

I wanted to talk to my mom about growing up poor. I wanted her to know that I was wiser now, smarter, and that she was my best friend and that I understood none of it had been her fault.

I wanted Mom to know I didn’t blame her anymore, that I knew she had done the best she could, that I recognized that whatever we lacked in supplies we made up for in love.

So I sobbed as I asked her about those three Kennedy silver dollars that had been intended only as souvenirs. I swore to her that someday I would find some just like them and put them back in their rightful place on that cheap, crooked, homemade shelf.

“You remember that day?” she asked, her beautiful and brown eyes wide with shock. “All the things we’ve been through, all we went without, and what you remember is giving up those three silver dollars?”

And she lowered her head onto her arms at our old Formica kitchen table and she wept.

Forty-one years have passed since my mom took to her knees to shatter those keepsakes. And 20 years have now passed since she died holding my hand on July 4, 1999.

Yet nearly everything I am today is because of that moment. Every friendship I have forged, every path I have chosen, every lesson I taught my son when he was young, I did so thinking that I would do whatever I must in this world to keep from dropping to my knees.

But I remain grateful every day that Mom had the strength to drop to hers.