After The Party

When I was a boy, my mother had to go to work at Garfield Smelter and work like a man to help support the seven children.
She worked the graveyard shift as much as she could, I'm sure to be with us during the day.
I don't know when the poor woman slept.
One Saturday morning, she got off work about 7:00 or 8:00 A.M.
She went to bed for a couple of hours and then got up.
She had invited all her relatives to dinner.
There must have been 35 or 40.
She decorated the tables and arranged the chairs and put all the dishes and silverware out.
She cooked and baked all day long.
The dirty pots and pans and dishes stacked up.

Everyone came to dinner, and after dinner all the dirty dishes were brought into the kitchen.
The food was cleared and stacked on the table and cupboards; then the kitchen door was closed and the family began to visit.
It was about 8:00 P.M.

I remember standing all alone in the kitchen.
In my young mind, I thought: My mother worked all night; she has worked all day to get this dinner.
When everyone leaves, she will have to do the dishes and put the food away.
It will take two or three hours, and that's not fair.
Then I thought, I will do them.

I washed the dishes, did the silverware, the glassware.
We didn't have an electric dishwasher; ours was a manual dishwasher, and that night I was manual.
I used a half-dozen dish towels.
I was drenched from head to foot.
I put the food away, cleaned off the table and drainboards; then I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed the floor.
When I was finished, I thought the kitchen was immaculate.
It took about three hours.

Then I heard the chairs shuffling, and everyone left.
The front door closed, and I heard my mother coming to the kitchen.
I was pleased and thought she would be.
The door swung open, and even at the age of of 11, I recognized that she was startled.
She looked around the kitchen, looked at me, and then there was a look I didn't recognize at the time.
I do now.
It was something like "Thanks,
I am tired.
I think you understand, and I love you."
And she came over and hugged me.
There was a light in her eye and a warmth in my heart.
I learned it is a wonderful feeling to turn on the lights in our parents' eyes.

Vaughn J. Featherstone -One Link Still Holds -October 1999 General Conference

Until you next see these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Dream

I had an appointment to see a guy who was going to help out my back. The ribs were slightly out of place and needed to be popped back into place. The man, tall and blonde, lead me into a big room...kinda like a classroom/auditorium/theatre place. And told me to undress. I did this, feeling a bit uncomfortable, because the doors had been left open and anyone could walk in at anytime. He came up behind me to fix my back, but the method he was using, didn't feel right. I broke away from him, and he left in a rage, because it was this way or no other way. I pulled a towel around myself and escaped back into the main theatre (where people had gathered to watch a play.) I'm not sure what I was doing, as I wasn't quite trying to find a seat, but with all the people there, I didn't want to draw attention to myself, (I did end up being dressed again.) But I did have a motive to find someone in particular to tell about the incident, and have them do something about it....

Then the unholy tones of daylight pulled me away....
and I became myself again. :)

-S.N.D