Reflections: Childhood Memories

The organ sits there against the wall collecting dust, holding pictures and memories. The double keyboard is yellowed and the top keyboard no longer works. The organ has no practical use other than displaying pictures yet I cannot bring myself to get rid of it.

My parents divorced when I was three. I remember being in court that day. We sat halfway down the aisle on the right hand side of the courtroom. I do not remember the judge, I do not remember my dad being there and I do not remember what was said. I just know I was there. Later that evening at home, I remember wishing my aunt did not have to leave and feeling slightly afraid although I did not know why.

My father quit his job that day in protest because the judge included alimony along with his child support payments. We became welfare recipients as a result of that and also because he never paid his child support either. This was in 1966; my mother did not have the means to fight him on it and the laws were not particularly supportive at that time.

My mother held us all together and we scraped by somehow. We walked everywhere because my mother did not drive. She worked part time at the only cab company in town as a dispatcher because they would pay her cash under the table, which helped her stretch her welfare check. We may not have had much but birthdays and Christmas were always celebrated. It was the four of us against the world and we did fine.

By the time I was in sixth grade, we had moved to a new town. My oldest sister was working along with my mother and we were doing okay financially. When my mother got her income tax that year, she divided it evenly four ways between us and we were allowed to spend it anyway we saw fit.

My mother used her share as a down payment for the organ, an electric Wurlitzer brand, double keyboard, with a foot pedal and endless gizmos. She loved and revered that organ. She faithfully polished it with the furniture polish that the music store threw in for free and lovingly dusted it. My mother sat for hours on the organ bench pounding the keyboards, operating the foot pedal and singing church songs at the top of her lungs. Occasionally she got too loud and the people in the apartment below us would bang on the ceiling to quiet her down.

The organ is the first big thing I ever remember my mother buying for herself. She sacrificed so much when we were little to make sure her girls had enough. Her organ brought her joy and happiness while music made her heart sing.

As we were clearing out her apartment after my mother died, on a whim I said I would take the organ. I had no real use for it; I took it for purely sentimental reasons. Even now, every time I look at the organ, all these memories come rushing back like it was yesterday. It brings a smile to my face to remember the happiness she got from her organ and thankfulness in my heart for my mother. The organ sits there against the wall collecting dust, holding pictures and memories.