Mama, what do you wish when you see a falling star
Or when you blow the candles out on your birthday cake?
Do you wish you'd followed different dreams when you were still a girl
Or are you happy with the way things are?
Are you glad you're my mother and that you're Daddy's wife
Or do you wish you'd lived another life?
Mama, what do you wish when you listen to your heart?
This is the (slightly modified) chorus to a lyric I wrote, got music for, and hope to get recorded. It's about my mother. Really, it's about me...maybe about a lot of us. I wish I'd taken time to know her better before she died and it was too late to ask. But answers come in mystical ways...
A few days ago, I got a call from a woman who said she was looking for the daughter of a woman her father had gone to grade school with. She said her father (AZ) and my mother were the best of childhood friends and that he had written a story about her. He wanted me and my siblings to have it. I was amazed, and of course said I'd love it.
Yesterday I got an envelope with a cover letter from the daughter and four neatly prepared copies of her father's story — one for each of us kids. The story had a foreward in which her father said that he wrote the story because he owed his family an explanation of why he held on to an old violin that he never played or even talked about. And he wanted his family to find us so he could let us know about the "wonderful and compassionate young girl who became their mother."
"The Pencil Box and the Violin" is a childhood memory with an O'Henry twist. It tells about a young Polish boy whose family moved around a lot so his father could find work during the Depression. In 1932, they family settle in Beeville, Texas, and the boy started second grade in a parochial school there.
A nun taught three grade levels in each classroom, with 12-15 students in each grade. The boy was terrified because of the number of students, the chaos of so much going on all at once, and because he didn't speak much English. Fortunately, a little girl named Sally Suzanne Swiger was in the same class.
"Sally did not laugh at me. In fact, she adopted me. She and I studied and played together all the time. Many times we did not go out at recess but stayed in the classroom and studied."
My mother was a lonely only child; a brother had died as a baby. Her own mother was distant. Her daddy, whom she adored, was a petroleum engineer who traveled a lot. I have an an old black-and-white photo of her dolls and doll house with her caption on it: "My Playmates." It seems very sad, because Mama was a real people-person. I'm sure she was just as grateful and thrilled for AZ's company as he was for hers.
AZ started playing the violin, and Mama loved to listen to him. Her mother could play piano by ear, and both families loved music. The friendship flourished — and nourished both of them — until the fourth grade, when AZs father was transferred. "When I told Sally that we were leaving Beeville...she cried real tears as if her heart was breaking. I did not know what to make of this as no one had ever cried over me before."
"When Sally knew for sure that I was leaving, she gave me her pencil box. In the early 1930s, if a student had a pencil box, it was a real status symbol....The pencil box was half the size of a loaf of bread and half as high. It had compartments for pencils, crayons, scissors, erasers, etc. That pencil box was a marvelous thing. Sally had a pencil box. I did not. And this wonderful young girl, my best friend, gave her pencil box to me. I guess she wanted me to remember her always. Sadly, I did not appreciate this loving gesture at the time."
AZ couldn't take home such an expensive gift, because his parents would demand to know where it came from. He was not prepared to tell them that, so he left the pencil box behind with a note to give it back to Sally. He and Mama never saw each other or spoke to each other again.
AZ continued with his violin lessons at great cost in time and money; he travelled 32 miles by bus every Saturday from Kenedy to Beeville. One day, his and Mama's old classroom teacher ran into him at a violin lesson, and she "berated me at the top of her lungs...for what seemed like an eternity. She told me in no uncertain terms that I really broke Sally's heart by not accepting the pencil box. I sobbed and cried all the way to the bus station...."
AZ never played the violin again.
In 2003, AZ saw Mama's obituary in the San Antonio paper. AZ told his wife his story, and when she asked why he had never tried to find Sally, he said, "I was too ashamed." AZ goes on to tell us about his life and show remarkable parallels between his and Mama's lives. And he closes with the simplest yet most heartfelt of words: "Thank you, Sally."
I cried when I read the story; I'm crying as I write this. I miss my mother every day.
"Star light, star bright
I wish she were here tonight."
Mama, what do you wish?
Thank you, AZ.
P.S. AZ, I do know Mama forgave you and would wish for you to forgive yourself, pick up the violin, and make music again. You loved playing; she loved listening. Remember your shared joy...and play. Play in her memory; play for your family; play for love.
