How Many Places Should I Set for Dinner?

I don't often write about my mother because, though she is still here, Alzheimer's took her from us years ago. Which is not to say that somewhere in there isn't a bit of my mother left. I can see her when she smiles, or squeezes my hand, or says some automatic phrase even though she might not remember who I am.

My mother was raised on a farm in Kershaw County, S.C., during the Depression. She never learned to swim or ride a bike, but she could ring a chicken's neck one-handed (fortunately I never saw this) and cook, can or preserve any food you could grow. She skipped a grade in school but she wasn't able to go to college. She was unfailingly kind and you'd have to get her in a corner to get her to say anything bad about anyone, even if they deserved it.

She never got a traffic ticket, and in contrast to my father, didn't do crazy, reckless things. It really bothered her when he did. She was a worrier. He gave her a lot to worry about. (By the way, she never once signed a release form for my riding lessons. That left me to do a lot of dancing around and somehow the instructors let me keep riding.)

One day when we were at Holden Beach Non-Saintly Brother, who was an adult living with them, brought a Laser sailboat, which is one of those small sailboats where you get wet. My father hadn't sailed since WWII and Non-Saintly Brother wanted to take him out for a sail. My father wouldn't do it.

So, when no one was looking, my father snuck off in the sailboat. (He hadn't wanted to go with Non-Saintly Brother because he didn't want anyone to tell him what to do.) He sailed off into the ocean. I don't even think he had a life jacket. He got pretty far out and while we watched, capsized. He tried and tried to right the boat. But in the decades since he'd sailed in WWII and that day, a new kind of fastener had been developed for the ropes, and my father didn't know how to get it un-done. The sail stayed taut so that every time my father stood on the rudder to right the boat, the sail countered by scooping up half the Atlantic Ocean. Finally, he gave up. We saw him sitting on the hull of the boat, floating in the ocean. I don't have a photo, but imagine this one. Without the rescue boat. In deep water, a mere speck in the distance. The summer that the "Jaws" movie came out.

So now it was time for Non-Saintly Brother and my then-boyfriend, who was also a sailor, to swim out through all kinds of imaginary great white sharks to save my father.

My boyfriend was scared off by the little fishes jumping around him. "I could only figure that something was after them, and I was afraid it would come after me." (Note: Old boyfriend is now well-known environmentalist.) So he swam back. Non-Saintly Brother continued his swim out into the ocean.

It was lunchtime. My mother had cooked everything and was setting the table. My father was pretty far out. Non-Saintly Brother was not an athlete, yet he was swimming farther into the ocean. There were no lifeguards on anything on this beach and not many people around. It was a tense moment.

Mama turned to me and said, "How many places do you think I need to set for dinner?"

Comments

[angela]

That was too funny....and I see where you got your sense oh humor!

Angela

[DM]

we loved the story...your mom sounds a lot like my dear wife "She was unfailingly kind and you'd have to get her in a corner to get her to say anything bad about anyone, even if they deserved it."
Both of us laughed when we read this ..you are a good story teller!