Basement Birdie

While I sometimes forget to thank my parents for all they do for me, I do understand what a blessing they are to me and my girls. Be it from something large or small, my mom and dad would go to great lengths to protect my girls and me.

Lauren and I were in a car accident last Friday. Our car had to be towed and we were transported by ambulance to a local hospital. As independent as I generally am, when I was told I would not be able to drive my car, I suddenly felt dependent upon my mom and dad. I called them and they drove straight to the hospital.

Lauren was completely traumatized by the accident and the ride on the ambulance was the icing on the trauma cake. My mom and dad sat with us while we answered question after question, waited on x-rays to be read and whatever else done in the ER that appears to take at least 4 hours regardless of the reason for the visit. The nurses brought Lauren popsicles and that helped, but she insisted that I tell her a funny story to help make time pass more quickly (AND to forget she was missing the PREMIER of Camp Rock 2, which she had been eagerly anticipating for several days).

With my mom sitting there, I immediately thought of the perfect funny story to tell:

Prior to my dad’s appointment of the position of State Sergeant Major, he had served in the Tennessee Army National Guard for as long as I could remember. He went to “guard drill” one weekend a month and spent 2 weeks of every summer at camp somewhere outside the state of Tennessee. This meant that my mother, who worked crazy hours (beginning at 3 a.m. or earlier for many, many years) for the post office, had to figure out a way to make sure my brother and I got to every church activity, summer basketball practice, baseball game, social activity, etc., with little assistance. My poppa helped as much as he could, but summer meant endless hours in the hay field or other farming duties for him.

It was summer and my dad had gone to camp. My mom and I were the only 2 home one afternoon, and my mom had just awakened from sleeping after finishing another early morning shift. She had asked me to go downstairs and switch a load of clothes from the washer to the dryer, so I opened the door to the basement to do as I was told. When I opened the door, there was a bird in the stairwell flapping its wings like crazy and headed straight for the door. I screamed bloody murder and quickly slammed the door and threw my body against it as if the bird were going to try and knock it down. I had no plans of trying to fight the bird to get to that load of clothes. I told my mom we needed to call my poppa so he could come and get the bird out of the basement. Of course, my poppa was out in the field somewhere on a tractor, and even if we had all used cell phones then, my mom wouldn’t have called him to come home and get rid of a bird. So, my mother, being the protector that she has always been, grabbed a broom and decided she would take care of the bird herself.

I opened the basement door just wide enough for my skinny mom to get as skinny as she could to squeeze through the door with her broom and immediately closed it behind her. With every step she descended I could hear the broom going back and forth from the walls on each side of the stairwell in a very steady rhythm. I had no doubt that my mom had taken care of that bird by the time she had reached the landing, because of the death dirge the broom had already played. Then, I heard the rhythm change to that of retaliation from the bird from the landing to the last few steps onto the basement floor. The new beat sounded something like “bump, bumpbumpbump, bump…bump.” It didn’t sound very good at all.

Being the big chicken that I am, I ran to my room and picked up the phone not to call for help, but to call downstairs to talk to my mom. When she answered the phone, she sounded defeated and said, “Leigh, I have fallen and have injured my ankle/foot badly.” I interrupted her to ask what I thought was the most important thing, “Did you kill the bird? Call me back when you get rid of it and I will come down there.”

My mom’s ankle and foot were black and blue for days after her battle with the basement birdie.

From a little basement birdie to calmly sitting in the ER waiting for my little girl and me to be released and everything in between, my mom would go to great lengths to protect and care for us. While Lauren, my mom and I laughed hysterically at that silly story about the basement birdie (yes, my mom even laughs about it now), I was reminded of what a blessing my parents have always been to me and how thankful I am for them.