“You have taken off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed, for knowledge, in the image of its creator.” Letter of St. Paul to the Colossians 3:9-10
Today’s walk was the most challenging yet — 15 miles mostly away from the coastal area with lots of steep hills and some rocky terrain reminiscent of my Camino Frances pilgrimage in September 2021. But that difficulty was made much easier as I recalled two additional memories of Mom and Dad when I was just 5 years old.
First, was a memory with Mom. One morning, as I waited for Mom to take me for my afternoon kindergarten session, I decided to climb up on to the kitchen counter. I loved to climb as a kid and always had to touch things — maybe Redding gets that from his Papa Bear? Anyway, as I climbed onto the counter, I reached up for a cereal bowl in one of the cabinets but slipped badly and my left pinky finger fell squarely on a glass cup that was lying in the kitchen sink. Luckily, Mom was right there in the kitchen with me at the time and quickly wrapped my finger in a tourniquet to stop the bleeding because the cut was so deep she thought I might lose the finger.
Even though I was only 5 years old, I can still vividly recall sitting in the front seat next to her as we raced the ‘51 Chevy to Valley Hospital. Little did I know that this would be the first of many trips Mom would make for me needing stitches as well as later on for Matty and Mary Claire. As I walked the Camino today, I could still see Mom driving the car with one hand on the steering wheel — BTW there was no such thing as power steering back then — with her other hand holding me and my pinky finger. I needed 6 stitches that day to close up the wound and my only salvation was that I didn’t have to go to school that afternoon. Once again, I think about how hard that must have been for Mom because she was pregnant with Matty at the time and it’s just another of the many times she always seemed to know what to do in challenging situations, something I described in her eulogy as those “Better Call Mom” moments. Later on in her final years when she had moved to the Allendale Nursing Home, we would often laugh together at all the times she would have to take one of us kids to the Valley Hospital for stitches.
The other great memory that popped up for me today took place later that summer and how Dad taught me how to ride a bike for the first time. Looking back, Dad was always such a good, natural teacher in so many things growing up. I didn’t have my own bike yet but trained on Dennis’s red bike that Mom and Dad had bought from the Sears & Roebuck catalogue several Christmases earlier and of course, Dad and I had made some earlier attempts that had ended in failure. But on this one summer Sunday afternoon in 1960, Dad said “Jackie, let’s try again”.
As I continued my walk today, I could still see Dad running next to me holding onto the bike as he told me to keep pedaling faster and faster. I remember that there were lots of kids and their families hanging out in the street that day — that was the nature of growing up on Newcomb Road and that first Cape Cod style house we lived in. I can still see Dad smiling mightily at me as he let go of the bike and I held on for dear life without falling. What a moment to savor. I can still remember that when I turned around the bike to come back toward our house, there was my Dad with that huge smile on his face. His son had finally made it and it’s a moment that I’ll treasure forever.
Thanks again Mom and Dad for such awesome memories.
