To three rainbows in my lifeCOFFEE WITH WARREN, with Warren Harbeck |
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Mother’s Day: what a perfect opportunity to pay honour to three women who have been beautiful rainbows to me in my journey in this world. I’m speaking, of course, of my grandmother, mother and wife. My grandmother on my mother’s side, Jeanette Watson, passed away when I was very young, so I barely got to know her in person. But fortunately for me, I had access to her diary. Her entries for May, 1940, begin: May 2: “Today Warren Arthur Harbeck was born.” May 4: “Edna’s baby was born at 8.40 PM Thursday night, a boy, weighed seven pounds, four ounces.” May 6: “I went to see Edna and baby. The baby is a little darling.” May 9: “I went over to see Edna this afternoon. The nurse brought the baby in to nurse. He is so sweet.” May 13 (the day after Mother’s Day): “Went to [Sunday School] and church Sunday. In the evening Dad and I went over to see Edna and that darling baby.” Grandma Watson made that last entry the same day that Winston Churchill, who just three days earlier had replaced Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister of England, addressed the House of Commons with these immortal words: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” I guess all I could offer my mother over the next months were diapers, toil, tears, and sweat. But please note what “Rainbow” Grandma Watson wrote about me: “that darling baby” is “so sweet.” Well, sweet or not, here it is, 84 years later, and I am profoundly grateful for the life and love her daughter Edna, my mother, gave me. A few years ago, one of our coffee companions asked me what childhood memories I have of my late mother. Recast in the light of Mother’s Day, the question recalls some nostalgic images from my earliest years: Playing with my toy soldiers on the living room floor while Mom tried vacuuming around me with her very noisy Hoover. Taking long Saturday night bubble baths, then being dried off and dressed for bed by Mom, who then sat me on her lap and read to me from books like Tom Sawyer, Treasure Island, and The Swiss Family Robinson. Having me kneel beside my bed as she prayed with me: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep” – and always ending in “God bless Mommy, God Bless Daddy,” and God bless everyone else I could think of, the more the better, to delay crawling under the covers. And then there was the first time I can remember Mom weeping. A man came to the door and handed her a telegram. My brother Richard, a World War II tail gunner in a B-17G bomber flying out of England, was missing in action. (It was months before she was consoled with the news that he was alive in a German POW camp.) “Rainbow” Mom left me a legacy of great values: honesty, gentleness, faith, and the joy of reading. I think she also affirmed in me the fun of giving flowers as gifts; she was always so appreciative of the bunches of dandelions and buttercups I used to give her. And wouldn’t you know it, my third rainbow, my wife Mary Anna, is also appreciative of bunches of flowers. In fact, as readers of this column are well aware, she has the gift for growing inspiring gardens of them in our backyard. But I’d need volumes of space to detail her ongoing blessings to my life. So, there you have a brief introduction to three amazing rainbows that were – and are – formative presences in my life journey. Happy Mother’s Day, Grandma, Mom and Mary Anna!
© 2024 Warren Harbeck |