Sitting on the oven door

With this being mothers day, most of my thoughts have centered around this one person who brought me into this world and provided a safe nest for me to grow from babe to adulthood.

When I was six years old and just starting my school years, having to get up in the morning and prepare for the day ahead was a chore. Especially-- as the long winter months settled in.
Our house had a big oil burning furnace which tried--but didn't quite reach the bedroom that I shared with three other siblings. Frost would form on the inside of the windows and I could see my breath as it was exhaled. Our noses would run in long streaks as we lay there on our tiny pillows. Our noses were the only thing stuck out from under the bundle blankets.

We wore cordoroy pants with a white shirt and tie to St. Michael's school. Trying to put on a frozen stiff shirt and pants which had been left in that cold cold room was pure--torture. So--we would pull the covers over our heads and not get out of bed when mom had called.

In the kitchen was a gas range which had a door the was sufficient in size for three small children to sit on. I know this for a fact--because mom took pity on us frozen tikes and would return to the bedroom with a blanket and take us one at a time into the kitchen. She would sit us on the oven door and in turn would warm our clothes in the kitchen with an iron before we put them on.

This same oven door dried out twenty million pairs of sloppy wet shoes that had been carelessly stomped through every rain puddle from 10 street where the school was to 8th street where we lived. Mom always made sure our shoes were dry and ready for the next day.

Yes---mom made those winter days much more comfortable than mother nature had intended. I don't know why this particular memory popped into my head today as I thought of her. I can still feel the warm air from the oven as we ate our hot cereal on those cold mornings nearly sixty years ago.

Hey Yodi, could you drag that comforter over here. I feel some goose bumps forming as memories of those long ago winter days have invaded my senses. Thanks mom for being there for me.