A Holy Mix

Mark Greenleaf Schlotterbeck

August 22, 2009
d like to tell you about a little phone call my mother made one time. he
phone call ! ha"e in mind # ! dont kno$ $hether it made any difference or not,
or if it %ust sho$s something about my mother and me. !
! $as in grade school. !n those days ! took piano lessons. &"ery Monday
afternoon !d $alk do$n to Mrs. 'ut(s house, at the corner of )ommerce and *orth
+ater streets here in 'e$isburg. !d climb the steps, go inside and gi"e Mrs. 'ut( a
dollar and a half that my mother had gi"en me, from the money my dad had
earned at 'e$isburg )ontainer. And !d ha"e a piano lesson.
!t $asnt a Monday $hen my mother made the phone call. !t $as a day $hen
! $as mad at her about something or other and !d thought of a $ay to lash out at
her. ! $ould ,uit piano lessons.
So on this fateful afternoon ! tramped do$n to Mrs. 'ut(s house. !
remember, as clearly as if it happened last year, looking up all those steps that led
to her door and thinking, -.ere goes my future./ ! marched up the steps, ! knocked
on the door, ! told Mrs. 'ut( ! $as ,uitting piano, ! $alked home, ! told my mother
$hat ! had done.
My mother, the Mighty *orma, picked up the telephone. She dialed Mrs.
'ut(s number. !n the course of a phone con"ersation, my mother said, -.ell be
there on Monday./
+hen ! think of that phone call, $hen ! think of the $ay my mother and !
sometimes $o"e together lo"e and conflict and support and immaturity and
steadfastness and the long haul, ! think that life is a holy mi0. ! think sometimes
that a person is a holy mi0. And the person ! think about in this regard, the holy
mi0 ! hold in my mind, isnt 1esus or Mary Magdalene or 2arack 3bama. ! think
rather of a $oman $ho, $hen she $as 29, had a baby and that baby $as me, the
third of her four babies.
!m not sure, really, that there $as anything holy about the Mighty *orma.
+hen she $as standing o"er a sink full of dishes and ! $as drying and she $as
angry, ! didnt see a halo floating o"er her head. 3n the other hand, ! didnt see a
halo o"er me the time that as a full4gro$n adult ! snapped at my mother and said,
-5o your o$n damned dishes6/
2ut if a person can use the $ord holy in e0pressions such as .oly )o$6 or
.oly oledo6, then surely one could say .oly *orma. .alo or not, angry or not,
smiling radiantly or condescending, that $oman taught me a great deal about the
mundane and the holy. She taught me, intentionally or not, about the mi0 of life,
the comple0ity of my %ourney, about the holy mi0.
! learned from *orma $hat it means to lo"e your parents. !n her case, !
learned it from the $ay she lo"ed her husbands parents, Alice and Seth, $hom
she called Mother and 5ad. 1ust to hear the $ay she said Mother, the $ay she said
5ad, $hen she meant her parents4in4la$, $as to kno$ that she lo"ed them and
kne$ they lo"ed her. She $anted to cook like Grandma, to the point that if you
could taste my mothers spaghetti sauce, simmered in a cast aluminum pot the
same $ay that Grandma, do$n at her house, simmered hers, and then, in the ne0t
spoonful, if you could taste Grandmas spaghetti sauce, $ith your eyes closed, you
could %ust barely tell $hose $as $hose.
! learned from my mother that sometimes lo"e gro$s in rocky, $eedy soil.
he Mighty *orma gre$ up poor in the hills, mostly in 2elmont )ounty, one of
ele"en babies, mo"ing from rented place to rented place, her mother gathering
$ood for the cooksto"e and kneading bread, her dad helping $ith horses
some$here or $orking in a coal mine in 7entucky or hearing of another %ob back
up in 3hio that $ould last for a $hile. She gre$ up fighting $ith her dad, she gre$
up getting a$ay and staying $ith another family so she could finish high school.
2ut $hen $ed go back and "isit her mother and the younger siblings, up the
slope from the 1eho"ah +itness church, in the rented house $hose yard $as filled
$ith her brothers cars and pieces of cars, $hen $ed "isit them, out $ould come
the lo"e and the stories and the homemade chili. ! learned from *orma that lo"e
can gro$ in the crack in the rocks and that its a pretty hardy old $eed, that lo"e
$eed. he holy potting soil mi0 is not all rich humus and sifted topsoil. !ts got a
rock or t$o. Sometimes its a bag full of rocks, and its got its share of $eed seeds.
! also learned from *orma, ho$e"er, that the penury of a certain kind of
childhood, the conflictual nature of some upbringings and the religious notions
held in ones early circle can li"e on and on in a persons life. !n my mothers later
years, $hen she $as di"orced and $orked do$n at the post office and no longer
had her husband or children around to fi0 things, she $ould sometimes hire people
to clean her house or check her furnace. he strangest thing $as that she $ould
refer to the furnace man not as .erb or Mr. )hambers but as )hambers. -! told
)hambers to look at my furnace,/ shed say. !t $asnt done, this kind of language
$asnt used. ! guessed that she fancied herself as belonging to a certain class and
$anted to distance herself from the lesser ones. !t seemed that the scrabbling
around of 2elmont )ounty ne"er left her. !t felt as if she $as a plant that didnt get
enough light gro$ing up and ne"er ,uite o"ercame that damage.
! learned, from my mother and from my dad, that t$o people, e"en your
parents, can be cra(y in lo"e and that that lo"e can be $onderfully infectious. 3ne
summer day $hen there $as no school and $e $ere home $ith our mother amidst
the bushes and trees and sunlight and green of our yard, on that summer day, $e
talked about $hen 5addy $ould come home, $hen 5addy $ould come home from
the factory. 3ur mother $aited for the moment $hen 2ob $ould appear. So $e
children $aited, more and more as the afternoon progressed, for 5addy to come
home. 8rom my parents ! learned that a holy current sometimes runs through life,
the current of lo"ing and being in lo"e and %oining together in a $ay that produces
lo"e letters and children and the anticipation of a moment $hen the belo"ed
arri"es at home after a day a$ay.
8rom my mother ! learned another thing about the holy mi0 of life, a thing
related to the spark and current of romantic lo"e. ! learned something ! ne"er
$anted to learn. ! learned from her that sometimes lo"e dies. ! learned, ! sa$, that
sometimes, certainly not al$ays, lo"e, e"en the kind of lo"e around $hich families
are built, comes to an end, though you try to say it isnt so. 8rom my mother and
my dad, from seeing their relationship change o"er the years, ! learned that people
for $hom separation is not e"en part of the "ocabulary sometimes ne"ertheless
end their partnership and lea"e one another, that the family is ne"er ,uite the
same after$ards and that that relationship had not been $hat it once $as for a
long time and had become something like the opposite of lo"e and that people go
on and life goes on. ! learned from my mother that the holy mi0 $e are gi"en
includes lo"e and not4lo"e and a $hole part of the garden in bet$een. here are
pistils and there are stamens and germination and green gro$th and lu0uriant
foliage and the glory of blossoms and the putting forth of ne$ seeds or ne$
runners, and sometimes there is $ithering in this part of the garden at the same
moment that %ust a fe$ plants a$ay, there is the chase of bee and pollen, the
magnetism of attraction, the bursting open of ne$ lea"es and the enduring of lo"e.
! learned from *orma that sometimes a de"oted, supporti"e person and a
neglectful or e"en a belittling person can be the same person. ! $as enriched by
ha"ing a mother $ho doted on me, hauled me to the city e"ery $eek for "iolin
lessons, helped me in the afternoons to prepare for the spelling bee and looked
after me. he $ay my mother ga"e herself to me makes a difference in my life
do$n to this day. 2ut such de"otion and encouragement could ha"e been
distributed more e"enly. 3ne of my siblings says that nothing ri"aled the attention
our mother ga"e Mark around the spelling bees. &ach of us $as shaped by these
dynamics, each of us is perhaps still shaped by them. 8rom them, from the Mighty
*orma, ! learned something about the holy mi09 that the person $ho adores and
supports you is not an angel but a human being, and that the person $ho neglects
you is also human. My mother $as a human being, and so am !.
3ne last, blessed part of the holy mi0 ! learned from my mother is $hat it
means to be a friend. :ear in and year out, decade in and decade out, my mother
and ! $ere nothing if not friends. 8or years $e talked on the phone, the $ay you
might talk $ith your parents if you dont li"e nearby. She $as al$ays there. Again
and again, the t$o of us $ere so happy %ust to hear the others "oice. :ou could
hear us smiling o"er the telephone.
!n our usual routine, early in the phone call ! $ould say, -+hats it like
there;/ She $ould say, -*o$ %ust a minute,/ $alk o"er to the $indo$, peek out at
the thermometer, come back to the phone and say, -'ooks like its bet$een
se"enty4t$o and se"enty4four./ .o$ many times my mother or ! $ould say that its
dumb to li"e so far apart. .o$ ! $ould look through nursery catalogs to order %ust
the right grapes, then tra"el to 3hio and plant them in her yard. .o$ many times !
$ould call her about a recipe, often as an e0cuse to call, until one year ! called
and, kno$ing the ans$er perfectly $ell myself, asked her to tell me again the t$o
$ays to make black raspberry pie. ! heard in response a silence and confusion
about $hat in the $orld ! meant. !n one of our last phone calls, t$o years ago, she
said its a pity she ne"er kne$ my children, though she kne$ and delighted in each
of them from the day they $ere born.
his friend of mine, *orma, lost her memory, and no$ shes lost her "oice,
and her breath, and $ere not going to talk on the phone any more. 2ut the Mighty
*orma, one holy mi0 of a $oman, is still my friend, and ! am one rich, rich guy to
ha"e lo"ed her and to ha"e been her son.