Jack
REFLECTIONS FROM # 5 … JACK
GOING TO BED - I .
Good night sweet Jesus my Savior, Good night sweet Mary my Mother.
We would go to bed in shifts - grouped by age. Nancy, Mike and Pat, the oldest, would go last. Tom, Jack and Teresa before them. Paul and Dave, the second shift. Pete and Bob , always off to bed first. But young or old, first or last, as children we all said the same prayers. Each night we were comforted with the idea that there was, indeed, a Mother and a Savior who cared about us. They were " sweet," not sullen and foreboding. They were like Mom and Dad.
I give you my heart, My soul, and my life,
Of course, Mom would put an infant sibling to bed, or tuck in a toddler, but until we were almost ten or eleven years old, the bedtime routine began with prayers said on our knees in the den where Mom, Dad and perhaps one or two older brothers or sisters would be watching TV. The volume on the TV would be turned down, and we would kneel in front of the fireplace looking up at the statue of the Sacred Heart on the mantle. My mind would wander as we recited from memory the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Act of Contrition, and the Glory Be. Mentally I would trace the intricate patterns carved into the mantle, or my eyes would wander from the statue of the Sacred Heart over to Dad's candy dish. Who, at the age of nine, could be expected to ponder the mystery of the sacred heart with a dish full of M&Ms or chocolate covered peanuts, or nonpareils so earby as a distraction? With any luck, we would be allowed to have a small sample from that dish before we headed off to bed!
To keep me from sin This day and forever.
Honestly, I don't know what Mom and Dad were thinking when we kissed them good night and headed off to bed on our own. Did they actually believe that we planned to go to sleep? Poor Teresa, she shared a bedroom with Patty who was part of the older group that would be following us to bed . That meant that after heading upstairs with Tom and me, she went off to her bedroom all alone. Tom and I, on the other hand, had each others company to enjoy. That is, until we were formally separated as room mates. Before that separation, however, the end of our day together was usually full of fun and laughter. Leaping from bed to bed or, even more exciting, out of our raised closet, over the two steps that led up to it, and (hopefully) into one of our beds. From the closet a safe landing was never guaranteed, especially when the twin beds had been configured into bunk beds. Even we knew that sometimes our bedtime routine was too full of fun, so we would " practice" getting in to bed quickly if we thought we heard Mom or Dad coming upstairs to check up on us. Eventually we would tire and crawl under the covers. Tom had the habit of rolling his head until he fell asleep, and I enjoyed hearing the rhythm he kept. Frequently from my bed I would recognize the sound of the older guys- Nanc, Mike and Pat - starting to head up to bed too. And sometimes, because their bedroom and mine was connected by our walk-through closet, I could hear the muffled sounds of one of Mom's and Dad's last conversation of the day. I might hear them review the day, talk a bit about one of us, or mention their plans for the next day. But more often than not it was the quiet, calm tone of their voices, not the specific words they spoke, that I heard and that lulled me to sleep.
Amen.
JLR 10/29/04
GOING TO BED - II.
We went to bed in shifts. Youngest to oldest - Pete and Bob first Paul and Dave next: Torn, Jack and Teresa third; and the "older kids," Nancy, Mike and Patty, last. For the most part the routine worked and seemed fair. Especially during most of the year when, on school nights, the schedule of bedtimes fell in half hour increments. Frankly, the steady stream of movement and noise in the bedrooms and bathrooms as we readied ourselves for bed must have made it impossible for those already tucked in to fall asleep.
But on Friday and Saturday nights, when the older kids got to stay up and watch Bracken' s World , or Saturday Night at the Movies, the bedtime routine just wasn't fair. The younger kids were allowed to stay up half an hour longer, but Nanc, Mike and Pat didn't have to go to bed until 11:00 p.m. Wait a minute... that's bow late Mom and Dad would stay up. That couldn't' t be right, but that was the rule.
So I learned at an early age that not all rules would seem fair. But it took longer to get used to the fact that rules like the weekend bedtime schedule could lead to even more maddening results. It was hard enough to feel like we should be allowed a little more time awake. But nothing was more frustrating than to hear the older guys in the kitchen only minutes after we said our prayers and headed upstairs . To m, Teresa and I could hear their talk and their laughter, and we could hear the sound of pans being taken from the cupboards. And, usually just a few minutes after we had finished washing up and brushing our teeth, and had slipped under the covers, the sounds of their voices and laughter would be replaced by a powerful and enticing - Popcorn.
We were in bed, and they were downstairs, parked in front of the TV in the playroom with a whole hour-and-a-half-ahead of them to watch their shows, enjoy each others company, and eat from a huge bowl of popcorn. The sounds and smell would work their way up the back stairs and into our bedrooms. Fortunately' for them, Paul, Dave, Pete and Bob would already asleep. But Tom, Teresa and I had to lie in bed consumed with jealousy.
I have a vivid memory of the three of us summoning up the courage to climb out of our beds and meet at the top of the old servant stairs in the back of the house . Those stairs led most directly to the playroom where all the fun was going on. Together we organized ourselves to call out: Tom, "CAN” Jack, " WE." Teresa, "HAVE." Tom, "SOME." Jack , "POP ."Teresa, "CORN?" ( At the time it seemed important to divide the question up into syllables so we each of us had an equal part.) A second time: "CAN WE HAVE SOME POPCORN?" A third time: "CAN WE HAVE SOME POPCORN?" A fourth time. A fifth time. A sixth time? I don' t recall and it doesn't matter. No one heard us. Mom and Dad were either in the den at the front of the house where our voices wouldn't carry, or they were out for the evening with friends. And if the older guys did hear us, they knew that eventually we'd knock it off and go to bed.
Oh, what a tough way to go to bed. I think back now, and I still long for a taste of that popcorn. But it was good that we had to wait. One at a time, we would come to appreciate more fully the satisfaction of crossing all the various thresholds from childhood to adulthood. We were allowed to grow up in tiny little increments, each one manageable by itself We didn't have to learn the hard way that staying up late on a Tuesday night meant you would be exhausted in school on Wednesday. Instead, we moved cautiously from childhood into our teen years, from high school to college, and from college age to adulthood. Another half hour of television. A slightly higher allowance. Permission to walk to the neighborhood store, or ride a bike five miles to the next town. From "be home by midnight ," to " don ' t stay up too late ." We were fortunate to be able to grow up one bowl of popcorn at a time.
JLR
10 /29 /04