Blog 499 – 12.19.2016
My Mother’s Secret

I believe that secrets are in many cases dangerous and destructive. There is a great line in the movie Crocodile Dundee where at a party Mick Dundee is introduced to a psychiatrist. Mick makes a joke to one of the other guests about the looney bin and while dancing later his girl friend explains that the lady he was joking with sees the psychiatrist regularly and Mick is aghast that he joked with the lady about the looney bin. His girlfriend says the lady is not crazy she just needs some one to listen to her problems. Mick tells her that back in Walkabout Creek, Australia, where he is from, that if anyone has a problem they just tell Walt and then Walt tells everyone and it is out in the open and in Mick’s words, “No worries.” Nothing disinfects like sunlight and the best thing for secrets before they become big problems is plenty of sunlight and fresh air.

My mother had a secret, many people do. Before she died she told my brother, “I kept your secret.” He replied, “No, mother, you kept your secret.” My beloved brother had shared his secret with everyone that mattered in his life and what a joy it is to have no secrets from the ones you love. I heard an old preacher say one time, “You can’t shame me for I have faced my shame.” We need never be ashamed of who we are or what we have done, terrible as it may seem, for we are loved.

On the morning of the day my father died I asked my mother to tell me the story of how she and dad met and married. On my birth certificate it states that my mother before she had me had twin boys who died shortly after being born. My dad kept few if any secrets and had let it slip to my brother and I when we were young that he was not the father of those twins and my mother shut him up quickly before he told the secret she carried most of her life. Like the one ring in The LORD of the Rings trilogy that secret too was a very heavy burden to carry and it affected her greatly.

At the breakfast table that morning in the middle of July 1997 with dad busy working in the garage and my wife, Linda Lee, and my son, Jonathan, still sleeping, my mother shared her story and her secret with me for the first time. She told of being pregnant and unmarried and how she and her older sister Katherine had just come back to Chattanooga from Detroit where they had lived with their dad, their step-mom Lilly, and a younger brother, three half brothers and a half sister. Alene and Katherine had moved back to Chattanooga and gotten jobs in a dime store because there just wasn’t enough room for them at there dad’s in Detroit. They were making the rounds of their aunts, staying with one till they wore out their welcome, then moving on to the next aunt. Mom was showing big time but had gone to a hang out downtown were all the young people went to have a Coke and meet up with their friends. Mom did not know my dad or he her but they had friends in common and knew of one another.

Mom was sitting at a table by herself and dad came over and introduced himself. After a little small talk he came right to the point. He said, “Would you marry me?” Mom went ballistics, “Marry you, I don’t even know you!” Dad said, “Well, it looks like you need somebody and I want a home.” Dad had married a young woman shortly after getting home from WWII but it seemed that young woman was not ready to settle down so they divorced soon after they were married. Mom must have scalded dad pretty good because he steered clear of her after that. In time she and Katherine wore out their welcome at all their aunt’s houses and so the moved back to their dad’s in Detroit again. While there she delivered the twins who lived only a few hours. There still was not enough room for the two older girls so eventually they moved back to Chattanooga got their dime store jobs back and started making the rounds of their aunts again.

When they were down to there last aunt again she looked up my dad. He was wary not wanting to be berated again. She got right to the point and said to him, “Does the offer still stand?” He said, “Yes.”Then she delivered what would have been to many men a deal breaker. She said, “Katherine comes too.” Dad said, “Okay.” They were married by a Justice of the Peace, in Rossville, Georgia. Nine months later I arrived on the scene. I never knew growing up how much my daddy loved my mother. I heard her say often how unromantic he was but after I heard the real story I saw my Daddy in a whole knew light and my Momma too. I love them both and am so grateful I got to have them for my parents. I don’t want that to ever be a secret.

Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White