A Special Day for Mothers and the Others Who Cared About Us

It has always been the custom at our church to ask the mothers to stand up on Mother's Day so that we could honor them all with our heart-felt applause. For a while, one of our priests formed the habit of asking all the women to stand up for this tribute. His explanation was that he knew that a lot of women who aren't mothers nevertheless care about and do important things for other people's kids. I think this was a wonderful idea because while it may not take a village to raise a child, it sure helps to have other people caring about us.

Growing up is never easy but I was blessed with a supporting cast who stepped up to the plate for me both in happy times and emergencies, especially after my mother died. All those people were important and deserve a round of applause but first and foremost among them was Catriona Bowen, a/k/a Aunt Tatty.

Back in the 40's, my paternal grandparents and Aunt Tatty lived in a brick bungalow a few blocks from us in the same small Midwestern town. (It wasn't unusual for extended families to live near to each other back then.) Aunt Tatty was Dad's sister but she and my Mom were great chums from the start. My parents were good to me and I loved them but Aunt Tatty was special - bright, intellectual and funny, possessing a great personal sense of style and an incredible, neatly organized purse whose interior always smelled like spearmint chewing gum. (I always used to ask her if I could look inside her purse because it was so fascinating!)

I was blessed with not only an extra person to love but the munificent bounty which all this entailed. Gifts from Aunt Tatty flowed from a boundless cornucopia and my parents anxiously supervised as I tore through the wrapping paper and ribbons. "What do you SAY, Anne?" they would coach me and I would chime enthusiastically: "THANK you, Aunt Tatty!"

Into Each Life, a Little Snow Must Fall.

Sometimes life pitches us a day which is not festive and frivolous. One snowy weekend when I was only three, my Dad was felled with a terrible stomach ailment which made him violently ill and dehydrated. In those WW II years, cars were few, my Mom didn't drive and the snow made it difficult for anyone to get a car out anyway on this occasion, so she trudged over to my grandparents where Grandpa was presiding in the kitchen, mixing up a "special little eggnog" for Daddy. It was left to Aunt Tatty and Mama to transport a glass jar of this lifesaving potion back to our house, by dragging it behind them on my sled.

We have never been sure what Grandpa spiked the eggnog with but my Dad later said that he "didn't even remember putting the glass down" after finishing the magic stuff which not only stayed where it should be but caused him to sleep for hours. Alas, there was more drama to come because while Aunt Tatty was visiting, she noticed that I was running a temperature so later that night, when the a doctor dropped by to check on my Dad, she asked him to look at me too. As he checked me over, she hovered anxiously and said "She's been crying." The doctor replied: "If you had an ear that looked like that, you'd cry too." Yes, now I had an ear infection and it was late at night during such a storm that Aunt Tatty could hardly have driven anywhere even if she HAD had a car there.

Fortunately, there was an all-night drug store and pharmacy a couple miles away which the doctor would pass on his way to visit another patient. He phoned in a prescription for me and offered to drive Aunt Tatty over there to get it but there was a "catch" to this and that was that since he had to go on to the other patient's house, he wouldn't be able to wait for her and bring her back to us. If she rode with him, she would have to get back on her own.

And that is what Aunt Tatty did.

It was after midnight when she left the drugstore but she slogged through the snowy darkness at least a dozen blocks to deliver my prescription and made sure I took the first dose. She was a real lifesaver, in the truest sense. It was years before I even knew about all that but when I did, it meant a lot to me and nobody had to tell me what to say. When somebody does something like that for you, there really is nothing else to say except ...

"THANK you, Aunt Tatty!"