SMALL TOWN THERAPIST ON RAISING SONS

The best letter writer by far was my mom

 I found this old blog post that I'd never finished. It inspired me to write. It also started me on the road to purging some old files.  Ah, but I'm sentimentalist and saved many letters and cards from my entire family for many moons. I'm not alone in this project. My mom was a secret sentimentalist and saved our drawings and some of my letters from camp at Lake Windego. "Dear Mom, all the other kids get letters every day and I get none! Write soon..." Okay, I was 10 years old and, in her defense, she had five kids at home.

After she died in 2010,  we had a grand memorial. Rather than sitting around, my siblings and I cleaned up her "aerie." We found so many little treasures and a vast amount of letters she saved. We decided to split up the many letters and each of us six kids took home a packet that contained letters, drawings and pictures. Our job was to read, or save, or toss.

For the past several hours I've had the pleasure and privilege of going through three big files of family letters, including my share of the packet of letters that mom saved. Reading these treasures from our families' combined history found me sometime in tears, sometimes laughing. Truly, most of the time I spent thinking about the family member and then missing the authors of these delightful missives. In my packet there were letters to my mom filled with gratitude from all of us. We told tales of ordinary life pleasures, like the joy of raising little ones, perils of raising sons, the funny things that small children do and the delightful events of celebrated holidays when we siblings and our families would get together. For many years, none of my siblings and I had much money and we lived great distances apart. So those letters back and forth were cherished.

The favorite letter that my mom saved from me was written in the '80's. I had to read it aloud to my husband who needed to share in the... joy? From the letter:

My mentor Laurie and I were asked to speak at conference in Victoria on the subject of 'Children of Alcoholics.' This was quite a thrill and we got a stand ovation. That was about all we got for our speech...except, they paid for our hotel rooms. Laurie took her son Tyghe and I had Zach and Josh with me, the boys got their own room. Since we were going to be without a car, we asked to stay in Victoria proper, and oh, was that a mistake. We were right in the thick of the bar district during the full moon and the day the unemployment checks came in the mail. Grown men howled from 10pm until 2am, revved their cars and had fist fights approximately right under our window.  At about 1 a.m. I hear this drunk yelling up "jump! jump!" and piercing the night, over the din below comes a recognizable voice saying, "How much will you give me?" It was Joshua. I furious and indignant. I leapt out of bed, rushed down to the boys room to find him leaning out the window, pleasantly bantering with the scene below. Naturally I lost it, and growled all kinds of reproachment to the boy. His reply? "You didn't say we couldn't." True, one doesn't think to tell the children, "Now don't yell out the window to the drunks..."

The next day when I was only slightly less angry I said to Josh, "If you think I got angry last night imagine what your Dad would have done." To which  he answered, adding insult to injury, "If Dad was here I never would have done it."

Several paragraphs later in the letter: "We are now well and fine. However, Thursday night Zach was jumping on a trampoline and hurt himself badly enough that he had trouble driving home. I put him in a hot bath...and he almost passed out. Our neighbor (he's an EMT) came over on his tractor and said he couldn't see any damage but we decided to take Zach to the doctor the next day. Meanwhile Dick is picking up Josh and his friend from school. When driving down the road, suddenly a shot rings out. The rear passenger window is shot out and Josh starts yelling in pain. D not knowing what's going on, turns the car around and roars to the Sheriff's department. Fortunately Josh is more scared than hurt, but the window crumbles, as temper glass will, and falls into our brand new car. Josh had quite the bruise and fortunately we were taking Josh to an Orthopedist the next day for his knees.  After the cortisone shots in his knees, I had Dr. Woo look at the pellet bruise on his back and while he was at it, examine Zach's muscle on his back. Pellet wound for Josh and pulled muscle for Zach. Quite sincerely at the end of the doctor visit, Dr. Woo looks and me and says, "You don't have any more sons I hope."

Happily our sons matured and through the years we've gotten many wonderful cards, phone calls and even letters that I cherish from our sons.

I have an idea, would you consider indulging me and writing any funny stories of raising your sons or daughters. I'd love it and believe everyone needs a good laugh.

Give the old lady a thrill, write 

susansmagicfeather 2026