March 3rd

As we flew into the Montreal airport, the woman in the next seat noticed fireworks. “I wonder what they are for? March 3rd isn't a holiday.” It may not be a holiday but it is a significant day for me. March 3rd, 2007 is the one hundredth anniversary of my mother’s birth. One hundred years ago Ella Rose and Everett Reed, her womb mate, were born. Reed and Rose were the youngest children of Austin Robert and Alice Emily Bennett.

Mother died in Edmonton in 1988 at the age of 81. My mother’s best friend growing up in Magrath, Alberta was Mae Harris who later married Frank Sabey. Her grandson and his family live in our ward in Calgary. A little over a year ago we attended her 100th birthday party at the Bow Valley Chapel and shared her memories of her friend, my mother. She lamented that one of the consequences of living a century is that your friends all leave you behind.

I’m pretty sure that it was on Mother's 65th birthday that I took Esther to Magrath to meet my parents for the first time. Three things stand out from that visit; one a little more than the others.

Esther didn’t know me well, we had only been on 10 dates, but she did know that when I got nervous I was more loud than usual. When I greeted my father I was practically yelling. If I was nervous about this meeting, she was really nervous. She soon found out that everyone had to yell at Dad. He was deaf in one ear and couldn’t hear out of the other.

The meeting went well and the second thing that stands out in my memory is my Dad’s assessment of Esther. “She’s a really nice little girl . . . well . . . I guess not so little.” If you’ve seen our wedding pictures you know that Dad was quite a bit shorter than Esther.

The third is the most significant. It was a conversation we had the night that we drove back to Calgary after the visit. (I have been accused of misrepresenting this conversation, so you may want to get verification from the other source.) I was driving; we were talking.

Somewhere between Fort McLeod and Claresholm I told her that I loved her. I had said that before. It wasn’t anything new. For some reason, instead of saying that she loved me back, which was all that I expected, she said “What are your intentions?” That took me off guard. “You’re a returned missionary and you say that you love me. What are your intentions?”

After a pause, I romantically blurted out, “Oh, what the heck, will you marry me?” Pause . . . Pause . . . then the response. “Yes.” Another pause . . . then she said, “Can we stop?” We did and a little over three months later we were married in the Alberta Temple in Cardston. As you can see there is no truth to my often repeated story that Esther asked me to marry her.

Just before the wedding Mother said to me "Andy, if you and Esther ever have a fight, I want you to know that we will take Esther's side." Fortunately we didn't fight very often and I never told my mother if we did. I do know that if I would have taken Esther's side every time I would have been happier. That is not because she was always right or that she had to have her way. It is because what ever we were fighting about was not worth it.

Thinking about my mother’s birthday raises a supposed memory. It isn’t my memory since it was before I was born. On Mother’s birthday, 3 March 1948, she must have wondered what she was doing turning 42 and pregnant. Less than 3 months later I was born. Esther understands that memory more than anyone. She has a similar one from her 42nd birthday.

My sister, Norma, was six years old when I was born. Her reaction to my birth is a story that Mother told my children over and over in the months that she lived in Edmonton before she died. Norma cried when I was born because she wanted a baby sister. When she got to see me in the hospital she said "If I'd have know he was so cute, I wouldn't have cried."

My mother lived through hard times during the depression, lonely times living in Winnifred Alberta, happy times with close friends in Claresholm, nervous times everytime she had to move and contented times with her family. She was a private person with a good sense of humour. I used to love it when my brothers and sister came home from university or with their families. Discussions in the kitchen would often end up with all of us getting the giggles about some joke or another.

She, and my memories of her, are worth fireworks.