Memories: In Song and Words

Image by © Royalty-Free/Corbis

We don’t know what will suddenly bring a dormant memory to consciousness. For Proust, it was the taste of madeleines. For me, it was a hymn sung in church.

“Whatsoever you do” was the song sung after communion at Mass a couple of weeks ago.

“Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers . . . .“

Well, that’s how the scripture (Mt. 25:40) goes, but in an attempt at more inclusive language, the song my parish sings now says, “Whatsoever you do to the least of my people . . . .“

The fourth verse begins “When I was little you taught me to read . . . .”

Mother, brother & me, reading before bedtime

With those words, I was instantly back in the house we lived in when I was in preschool in Corvallis, Oregon, sitting on the couch beside my mother as she read to my brother and me.  She taught me to read.

My mother later said a neighbor girl taught me to read, a girl a couple of years older than me with whom I played school the year before I started kindergarten.

But I believe it was my mother. I recall sitting beside her as she read to me and my younger brother. Every day she read to us.

I recall turning the pages to read ahead when Mother left the room, long before the neighbor girl and I played school. When Mother returned, I quickly turned back to the page where we had been when she left, afraid that if she knew I could read myself, she wouldn’t read to me any longer.

But she would have. Now I know she still would have read to me.

A decade later, after my much younger sister and brother were born, she read to them. And she didn’t mind when I sat down beside them to listen to the same books all over again.

Sometimes, when she was busy, I read to my younger siblings as she had read to me.

And many years later, when I had children of my own, my husband and I read to them. The Little House books. Kipling’s Just So stories. Johnny Tremain. Gary Paulsen. Little Women.

Reading has always been important in our family, through the generations.

My family’s tradition of reading makes the tragedy of my mother’s Alzheimer’s disease all the greater.  She was a school librarian, but can no longer enjoy reading. She reads the same page of a book over and over again, not retaining what it says. She reads the newspaper, but does not understand the news, and asks what it means repeatedly.

So when I heard the words “When I was little you taught me to read,” my eyes welled with tears. My mother will not read to me again.

But I vow to keep her tradition of reading out loud to the children in our family alive.

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Janet Sunderland
12 years ago

What a marvelous and touching story. “Whatsoever you do…” is one of my favorite songs. And reading was always a part of our lives. My mother told the story of her mother teaching her to read from the Kansas City Star. her mother wrote poetry and my mother wrote essays and a newspaper column. Words seem to carry more life sometimes than deeds. Not being able to read because of Macular Degeneration was my mother’s sad fate although her dementia also kept her from remembering what she read too. I’d often walk into her room at the Good Sam in Wymore and find her sitting at the window, staring out at the railroad tracks (her father was a depot agent and so trains always a part of her life). I’d say hello, and then she’d tell me a story about what she’d been remembering. The early stories seemed to stay. Maybe your mother remembers early stories, too.

carolekatsantoness
12 years ago

A moving story, Theresa. A reminder for me too of my mother who loved to read. She developed dementia in her last year of life and also macular degeneration; together they took away a true love of her life. So, I read to her. Sweet memories.

Linda Joyce
12 years ago

Theresa,

What a nice post!

I have moved so much in my life, however, songs will take me back to a place and time, open up memories for me. I haven’t stopped to examine the reason why, but whenever I hear an American patriotic song, I get teary-eyed.

Smiles,

Linda Joyce

Jill Weatherholt
12 years ago

This is a beautiful post, Theresa. It hits very close to home for me. Thank you.

Theresa Hupp
12 years ago

Thanks to all for your comments. So many of us remember our mothers teaching us to read. That’s probably why we became readers (and writers).
Theresa

trackback

[…] it – it’s a murder mystery (which I always enjoy), and it’s about a woman with Alzheimer’s (which my mother has).  I read the book in two days, almost in tears the entire time, because I could see my mother’s […]

trackback

[…] As I wrote recently, reading has always been very important to me. I didn’t know when I wrote my post two weeks ago about my mother reading to me that November is Family Read Aloud Month, nor that the Kansas City Public Library is working with Mayor Sly James on an initiative called Turn the Page Kansas City, part of the Library’s Building a Community of Readers program. […]

trackback

[…] written before about how important reading was in my family when I was a child. I remembered that importance again […]

trackback

[…] mentioned before that my mother was a librarian. She didn’t become a librarian until my youngest brother was in […]

trackback

[…] written before about how important reading has been in our family, but my earlier post (here) focused on how my mother read to me when I was a […]

Janet Sunderland
12 years ago

What a marvelous and touching story. “Whatsoever you do…” is one of my favorite songs. And reading was always a part of our lives. My mother told the story of her mother teaching her to read from the Kansas City Star. her mother wrote poetry and my mother wrote essays and a newspaper column. Words seem to carry more life sometimes than deeds. Not being able to read because of Macular Degeneration was my mother’s sad fate although her dementia also kept her from remembering what she read too. I’d often walk into her room at the Good Sam in Wymore and find her sitting at the window, staring out at the railroad tracks (her father was a depot agent and so trains always a part of her life). I’d say hello, and then she’d tell me a story about what she’d been remembering. The early stories seemed to stay. Maybe your mother remembers early stories, too.

carolekatsantoness
12 years ago

A moving story, Theresa. A reminder for me too of my mother who loved to read. She developed dementia in her last year of life and also macular degeneration; together they took away a true love of her life. So, I read to her. Sweet memories.

Linda Joyce
12 years ago

Theresa,

What a nice post!

I have moved so much in my life, however, songs will take me back to a place and time, open up memories for me. I haven’t stopped to examine the reason why, but whenever I hear an American patriotic song, I get teary-eyed.

Smiles,

Linda Joyce

Jill Weatherholt
12 years ago

This is a beautiful post, Theresa. It hits very close to home for me. Thank you.

Theresa Hupp
12 years ago

Thanks to all for your comments. So many of us remember our mothers teaching us to read. That’s probably why we became readers (and writers).
Theresa

trackback

[…] it – it’s a murder mystery (which I always enjoy), and it’s about a woman with Alzheimer’s (which my mother has).  I read the book in two days, almost in tears the entire time, because I could see my mother’s […]

trackback

[…] As I wrote recently, reading has always been very important to me. I didn’t know when I wrote my post two weeks ago about my mother reading to me that November is Family Read Aloud Month, nor that the Kansas City Public Library is working with Mayor Sly James on an initiative called Turn the Page Kansas City, part of the Library’s Building a Community of Readers program. […]

trackback

[…] written before about how important reading was in my family when I was a child. I remembered that importance again […]

trackback

[…] mentioned before that my mother was a librarian. She didn’t become a librarian until my youngest brother was in […]

trackback

[…] written before about how important reading has been in our family, but my earlier post (here) focused on how my mother read to me when I was a […]

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