Mother of the Groom

The story came packaged with the most unusual wedding shower present - a pair of rollerblades. A strange gift from my new mother-in-law. It seemed kind of fun, but right away I sensed that she was trying to tell me something. And she was. It was only days later when I was sorting out the shower gifts from the pile on my living room floor that I discovered the handwritten letter rolled up and inserted into the foothole of the left rollerblade. There were quite a few pages; half-sized stationery with flowered borders, covered both sides in his mother’s hand…

Dearest Melody,
I am so thrilled that you have chosen to spend your life with my Amos. He is a wonderful man and you are a wonderful Christian woman. I suppose you already know this, but I just wanted to make sure. That beautiful mountain of a man – big and strong and nice to look at – has a volcano inside. Has it erupted around you yet? That’s where the roller skates might come in handy.

I blame it on the doctors at the time of his birth. I didn’t know any better and was away from my mother and family. When Amos came along we were in the middle of our first winter up in the wild and woolly Muskoka country where Dan had been sent on his first church mission. It was the last week of February and we’d never experienced snow so deep and so all-enveloping. It blew up against our little Manse and drifted in the windowsills to be discovered in the morning like unexpected visitors standing inside the front door. It just kept falling day after day, week after week as I grew more and more expectant.

We’d been through one birth already of course. But Peter had been born in West Toronto Hospital where we were surrounded by both of our families and lots of doctors and nurses – not at all like the little Red Cross Medical Mission in Burk’s Falls.

We’d been through one winter in the drafty little manse. Dan had been assigned to serve the Muskoka west Pastoral Charge with its seven remote little country churches. Of course in mid-winter it was down to five as two of them were on summer roads. The central church in Magnetewan wasn’t any bigger than the chapel in my Dad’s West End Toronto church. But it was exciting to be on a mission. Dan loved the adventure of it and I was along for the ride. In the fall I taught school in the one room schoolhouse just a little walk from the manse down the tree-lined dirt road through the village. You could see the river down between the houses on the one side.

Mrs. Hurlycoat would watch little Peter and I would give the local children their lessons each day. There were forty children aged from 5 to 15 all in that one big classroom. Their parents were so pleased to have a “real teacher” as the winter before the lessons had come from Mrs. Oppenmeyer, the General Store owner’s wife. She hadn’t made it past grade 8 herself and her thick German accent took some getting used to. The children were disappointed when I had to leave to give birth to Amos. Mrs. Oppenmeyer would take them through their lessons just fine but there’d be no singing and no special projects to work on. Those children were used to making do.


The contractions came near midnight on a Sunday night. We’d been to the Williamson’s for a big Sunday roast beef dinner after church that day and I think the smell of roast beef must’ve enticed little Amos out into the cold. I woke Dan up and told him it was time to get the car ready and to call Mrs. Hurlycoat to watch Peter. I kept busy putting my things into a suitcase and laying out clothes for Peter for the next day. By the time the car was brushed off and warmed up – it was snowing – of course – Mrs. Hurlycoat was in the Manse.

First things first, she turned up the thermostat on the oil furnace like she always did. It was part of the deal. She didn’t complain about the extra trouble three year old Peter would put her through and we didn’t say anything about the extra oil she burned (“It’s the congregation that fills the tank isn’t it?” she asked by way of an explanation the first time she went to the thermostat.) Everyone in the village seemed to know our house and household better than we did. We’d often get the impression that the good people of the church saw us as their mission – keeping the city minister and his family going through the winter – the same way we saw them as ours.

Dan got me bundled up and into the icy little Aston Martin. My water broke on the way out to the car. (It was the icy patch I slipped on three days later walking up our sidewalk with Amos in my arms.) Riding in that little English car through the snowdrifts in the daytime was treacherous. Following the little patch of light those headlights shone into the night’s snowstorm was terrifying.

The snowbanks were up above the car’s roof in most places. It made the road like a tunnel and easy to follow as long as you stayed in the snowy tire ruts. If the car jumped out of the ruts the deep snow would grab at your wheels and threaten to pull you into those walls of snow. As frightening as that was - it was out in the open spots where the wind blew across the fields that the real terror lay. The road would become part of a wide blanket of snow that you had to just steer straight through. You knew that the road was straight in that stretch and you just had to hope that your aim was true. Dan started singing hymns and I knew then that he must be just as terrified as I was.

I suppose God heard the hymns and sent angels because we made it through to the little Red Cross Outpost. We were like a ship arriving in safe harbour. Mrs. Hurlycoat must’ve got through on the telephone to them because they were up and waiting for us – both of them. The nurse and her husband the caretaker ran out to the car to greet us with a wheelchair. “The doctor’s on his way” they assured us as the wheelchair went sideways into a drift off the sidewalk and the gentle old caretaker dragged me backwards out of the snowdrift and through the doors apologizing all the way. They got me into one of the three rooms (after evicting an older gentleman in his skivvies. He seemed like a regular, or a relative, by the way they spoke to him).

Amos and I spent the next thirteen hours in a wrestling match fighting to push him out of his watery hideout into the world of light and air. The doctor arrived with snow in his hair. (And I’m not talking about the snowy locks of age and experience.) He was a young Italian man from Toronto – out flying solo on his first mission like Dan. Over those thirteen hours, Doctor Triggiano and I took turns feeling scared, angry, and helpless at the situation. Amos is a Pisces you know. He seemed to like being in the water just fine thank you. If he was coming out it would be against his will.

The nurse was the saving grace for all of us. She’d been the local midwife for years and years and had seen this kind of battle more than a few times. Agnes was her name I believe. I didn’t like seeing the way she winced as the doctor pulled a pair of forcepts from his bag. But Agnes remained stoically calm offering strong words of confidence and encouragement throughout. Those words were for me - but I’m sure Doctor Passano received them too. He would take deep breaths right along with me as we prepared for yet another push and wrestle. He finally dragged little Amos out of his cocoon and into the first day of March. The sun was shining brightly now through the window. I was an exhausted mess crying endless tears –enough to fill a river. Almost too weak to worry, I watched helplessly as they whisked my silent baby away to another room.

After what seemed an eternity, I heard his angry cry piercing the silent snowbound quiet of the little Hospital. The nurse came in, told me everything was going to be okay, and gave me a pill with some water. I took a deep breath, sighed, and dropped off into a sleep as deep as the snow.

The next sound I heard was Dan’s voice bellowing through the little outpost. I couldn’t really make out what he was saying through the painkiller’s haze but I could tell he was mad. ”He’s black and blue! Looks like he’s been in barroom brawl! What the heck did you do to him? And my wife’s hardly any better! I want some answers and I want them now!” Poor Dan was really beside himself. He’d had several complaints the week before about his last sermon.

So you see dear, Amos had quite the stormy entry into the world. Who knows whether he could sense the terror in his mother as we drove those snowy roads? Who knows whether he picked up on the doctor’s anxious, tentative hand? The first faces he saw were frightened. The first sounds he heard were hurried worried instructions. Angry accusations were the first words he heard from his father. If you go by first impressions – you have to wonder what the little darling must’ve felt about this world he’d been pushed into?

He thrived after that. Once he got some food in him he started growing and didn’t stop –he’s still growing I think. But every once in a while – and this is why I’m telling you all this – the slow simmer that’s inside him boils over. And when that long slow fuse comes to and end , it seems like the anger’s coming from a bottomless pit. It just blows and blows.

With attention, you get so you can notice the signs. For a few days before, he gets real quiet. He starts taking everything very seriously. Every comment is taken to heart. Even encouragements seem to make him wince. Storm clouds gather. And when it breaks, he starts letting his tongue go. His shouts roll like thunder. His words shock like a lightning hit – it’s scary how he can strike right at your deepest, most hidden hurt.

It’s so not like him. Not like the kind and gentle Amos we love. I don’t know where it comes from but on those days – it’s like he’s raging at the world – mad about being here – mad as hell – and somebody’s gotta pay. And that’s when all you can do is strap on your roller blades and skate out of his way.

When you get back, the storm will have passed and he’ll be ashamed like a bad puppy that’s peed on the carpet again. I just have to wonder if it’s got anything to do with that Red Cross Outpost. He would have some good reasons to be mad about that whole little adventure. That - and it was quite some time before he got any of that roast beef.