Theresa Lewis

I don’t know why it was like that, but in my youth, I had very little credibility with my parents. They didn’t seem to have any confidence in my abilities. They never believed things I told them. I always listened to my mother, and for the most part, I behaved responsibly. I remember one incident that happened when I was seventeen.

Our family belonged to a family club where my mother was an active member. One day she approached the directors with an idea she had about training young people how to be responsible and efficient babysitters. At that time, there was nothing like it in our city. Everyone thought it was a great idea and so the Guardian Angels Babysitters was born. My mother worked hard to make sure it was professionally executed. She called in psychiatrists, teachers, and others who were experts on raising and handling children of all ages. The course ran from fall until spring. Just before Easter that year, graduation day day arrived. Those who passed the exams were to receive their certificates at a somewhat pompous ceremony where refreshments would be served. Parents and guest speakers from the course were also invited.

Instead of having the affair catered, my mother and some of the other ladies from the club decided to handle the refreshments themselves. One thing that the club did not own was a coffee maker large enough to service the expected crowd. For that, my mother went to a well known catering company and asked to rent a forty-cup coffee maker. The owner of the catering business told my mother they had just received a brand new coffee maker that morning. My mother told them she would take care of it and treat it like gold. I thought that was a weird thing to say. The coffee maker was new, and it was shiny, but it was definitely chrome.

We had a fairly long walk home after picking up the ‘golden’ coffee pot. It sure was big and it was also cumbersome to carry. I couldn’t stand to see my mother struggling to carry it for the whole walk home. I offered to carry it for her. She declined my offer and insisted upon carrying it herself. We had twelve city blocks to walk. I waited a while and again offered to carry it for her. Again she refused my help.

As we rounded the corner to the street where we lived at the bottom of a hill, I noticed that my mother was tired and struggling with the ‘golden’ coffee maker. Again I offered to carry it. Again, she refused my help, but this time with our house in sight, she said she would be glad when we got home safely. No sooner were the words out of her mouth when she let out an almighty ear-piercing scream, threw the ‘golden’ coffee maker in the air then with outstretched arms, she promptly fell flat on her face on the sidewalk and slid downhill a few feet. She scared the wits out of me. I thought the woman had taken leave of her senses. For a moment, I was absolutely numb. The deafening clatter of the ‘golden’ coffee pot shattered the silence of a warm spring day. It rolled a good fifty feet downhill before coming to rest on someone’s front lawn.

I was horror-stricken. There was my mother lying face down on the sidewalk. I tried to get her to her feet, but once I realized what had just happened, I laughed until I wept. My mother was half laughing and half crying. She told me she had twisted her ankle. Once I managed to get her on her feet, I saw that she was a mess. Her chin, hands and knees were skinned and bleeding. Her nylons were in shreds. The front of her dress was so tattered that it looked like someone had thrown acid on it. She stood there bleeding and stunned and her only concern was for the darn ‘golden’ coffee pot.

I went down and retrieved it. It looked almost as bad as my mother did. It was all dented and scraped. When I went to give it back to her she told me I could carry it the rest of the way home. I did, but I told her she should have given it to me in the first place because I would not have thrown it downhill like she had just done.

I was not with my mother when she returned the coffee maker. She did tell me that she had lost her deposit on it, but that is as far as she would discuss it with me. I often wondered if she ever told the caterer what really happened to it.