Lullaby and Goodnight (revised 3-22)

Lullaby and Goodnight 9 years old

I was laying in my bed with my Spring green and white checked bedspread with matching canopy swathing me. Even with this birthday bedset present from my parents surrounding me, that night I felt a bit scared for some reason. Then Mom came in. She glided across the room, always graceful. She sat down beside me and reached her slender hand out to place on mine. Opening her lovely mouth, she effortlessly sang to me, her voice sweet and rich like brown sugar – once again – “Lullaby, and good night…” After the song she stood, smiled, told me she loved me, walked to the door to turn the light out and said, “Good night, Irene!” Other nights she sang Amazing Grace. Sometimes she said, “Don’t let the bed bugs bite!”

Every night she was there.

This was my model for how to tuck my son in, and what to do for him his whole childhood at bedtime. I sang Amazing Grace to him so many nights when he was young that I couldn’t count them. When he was about six, one night after I finished singing he asked, “Mom, what’s a ‘branch like me’?” One of my favorite memories.

Later I would sing that same song back to my mom in a tragic yet miraculous moment.

She told me a story again and again whenever I was upset with a friend. She was at school, maybe first grade. She was pushing her friend on a swing. The friend was angry – about what I forget. She kept telling my mom she hated her. The friend would yell, “I hate you.” And my mom would respond, “Well, I love you.” She tells me that just because someone says somethiing hurtful to me is no excuse not to love them or to act hurtful myself. When I say that what the friend did to me was worse than what I did back, she says, “You can always find someone worse than you are. That’s no excuse to do wrong.” When people tell me how they are so glad they told someone off or how justified they are because someone else did something wrong, I tell them what Mom taught me. I don’t always follow it perfectly, but I know I should.

I think a myth about homeless people, or alcoholics, is that they or we have always been defective. It's easy to dismiss these people as not even comprehending the things others do. It's easy to count them as out; as not even counting as real people like when we walk by someone on the street who is talking to himself and is not wearing clean clothes, perhaps. My mom was real. She taught me love and tenderness, how to be affectionate, how to be a better person and a bigger person than others. Yes, she hurt me, too. I don't know a parent who doesn't hurt their kid. I have hurt mine. I still count. So did she. So do they.