It took two years, but my daughter finally had her confirmation. Who knew, when the process first began back in 2019, that COVID would dare mess with Christ’s work and make gathering inside a church taboo. Suddenly the body and blood of Christ became forbidden fruit, and sharing a sip from a communal cup of wine and sharing the peace with one another are the worst things to be at. But the Lord works in mysterious ways, folks.

The pandemic and its fallout was the final straw that got my sister, a nurse, to pack up and leave Ontario with her two youngest and return to ‘The Rock.’ As a result, my niece had an opportunity to join my daughter’s confirmation class in year two of an attempt to begin their Christian journey on their own steam.

CROOKED AS SIN & TOGETHER WITH KIN

At first, the gruesome twosome was a sorry-looking pair. When the classes resumed, they were literally crooked as sin as I dragged their sorry arses to church one early morning to restart the dragged-on pivotal process. When the priest asked my niece what she likes to do, she gloomily replied, ‘sleep,’ in reference to the fact I had dragged her pitiful behind out of bed before noon on a Sunday. At least she answered.

My daughter scowled and, using her best resting you-know-what face said nothing. I answered for her, out of pure horror, and said, ‘movies. She likes movies.’ The reverend, obviously used to facing evil, dared ask her, ‘Oh? And what kind of movies do you like?’ to which she replied, ‘movies about murder.’ Nice. This is going well.

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LOVE LOCKDOWN

Another COVID local lockdown meant that classes moved online, and at first, the girls had to be dragged along to attend each and every one. For one, I chased them around the house with my phone playing the Facebook Live classroom of Christ feed. But then one Thursday evening when I was busy being busy, I heard something going on in the background: Sunday School Class! And I didn’t even need to give a reminder.

At the rehearsal, the girls who had grumbled and refused to participate gleefully accepted church scripture readings and sang songs praising the Lord, including enthusiastic hand gestures. Hallelujah! The ladies shopped for clothing worthy of a solemn church service too, taking quite seriously the significant occasion. Yet still, we joked and tormented. My sister and I enjoyed telling people that Elia and Claire “needed Jesus” and wouldn’t be able to make it to music class or to some other event that coincided with that week’s confirmation class.

HIGHWAY TO HUMOUR

Finally, the big day arrived and the girls were actually excited. They made sure anyone who couldn’t make it to the service because of location or COVID restrictions received the live link to follow along and they dressed to impress. They did their readings, they sang, and they held their candle with pride. Of course, the Lord always works in mysterious ways and loves to demonstrate His sense of humour.

On the way to the service, I turned on the radio only to hear Highway to Hell. I turned it up on bust, naturally.

LEMON PIES & COUNTRY SKIES

For more proof that miracles do happen, I’ve had the makings of a lemon pie on my counter for over a week. I just hadn’t gotten around to actually making it. A few hours before the service, my mother asked if I happened to have an extra tin of tomatoes sitting around for her to use for her supper prep. I did, and, mostly as a joke, I also passed down my abandoned pie supplies. She raised an eyebrow but took the works.

Half an hour later, mudder popped up with the finished product. She had actually made the pie! ‘Ask and ye shall receive,’ my mom said, and we ate the pie for dessert before heading off to church.

Mom may not have turned water into wine — which by the way would have really impressed me because I was sadly out of vino — but she did turn lemon pie mix into a lemon pie, and the girls, by eventually buying into the whole confirmation process totally on their own, turned their original sour lemons into sweet tasting lemonade.

Amen!

For more by Pam Pardy, click here!

Those fairytale-like mommy moments don’t always come easily. ‘Come to mommy, darling,’ gets shamefully replaced by a shrieked; ‘you’re crying?!? I’ll give you something to cry about,’ or a hissed, ‘zipped it, drama queen!’ when kiddie call-outs just won’t quit. 

Mothers aren’t perfect. Booming morning-after-the-night-before headaches can create a bad working environment for mommy miracle working, for instance. Do-it-yourself breakfast out of a tinfoil package can replace those fluffy, just so scrambled eggs and a serve-yourself sugary juice box can suddenly be a suitable substitute for milk poured with precision and passion in tough times.

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Mother of the year

We’ve all been there. I have so many memories of me being this fairy-like mythical mother of which songs and poetry should be written about, yet my 24 year-old son’s version isn’t quite the same as mine. Take his hand scar. I had been vacuuming like a mad woman the day my baby sister was getting married. Family were flying in and things were hectic. I tipped the vacuum to get ‘me carners’ and my curious kid stuck his little hand in the swirling vortex of brushes and dirt. Missing skin. A raw wound. Crap. I had to run to the airport to pick up my parents. I had to curl my hair. I had to finish my house work. And I had a wedding to get to.  I ran cold water over the wound and wrapped it in a clean cup towel as I kissed the baddie.

It wound up being a bad third-degree burn, and my lad is literally and figuratively scarred for life from pure parental neglect. “Why didn’t you take me to emerg again?’ he asked just the other day while fingering the mommy-caused scar. 

“I had stuff to do,” I replied. “Mother of the year. You’d stick a bandaid on a bullet hole if you were busy enough,”  he scoffed. 

True. B.B. gun and pellet gun marks had been covered in kisses and patched with bandaids over his two decades.

The edge of extinction

My daughter had her own run in with ‘mother of the year.’ I was hosting a meeting in my outport and I was frazzled. My son and his friends would be watching the wee one while I went to my meeting, so I figured I’d get her ready for bed. I stuck my daughter in the tub and left her sloshing as I bustled around. I heard a shriek. I ran. Blood everywhere; face. Hair. Even the bathwater was pink. She screamed bloody murder while death clutching my leg razor.

Her upper lip appeared to be sliced off. I stuck a facecloth to her chops, kissed her until she was quiet, and went off to my meeting. Finest mommy moment? No, but the truth of the mommy myth of the magical mommy is that we’re really fragile, ripe for failure human beings.

Youngsters fall off kitchen counters as we get absorbed in juicy, gossipy phone calls. Kids tumble from bunk beds as we soak in the tub. They wander off at malls as we window shop. Kiddies live life on the edge of extinction in the front yard as we dart inside to charge a phone or refill a wine glass. But usually, with luck, everyone survives – though there may be a scatter scar or two left behind to tell the battle-tale. But hey, that’s fine too, right? Nothing that a kiss, a cuddle, or a well-placed bandaid can’t cure. No matter how old the kiddies get, baddies and mommy kisses are always the cure-all.

Pam Pardy, The Herald’s Managing Editor, can be reached by emailing pghent@nfldherald.com