Sick Memories

Some of my favorite childhood memories are of being sick. That might sound strange at first, but being the sixth child out of seven, sometimes being sick was one of the best ways to garner my frenzied mother's attention. That, and, I got to miss school. There were also some other benefits that came with being sick in our house. If you had a sore throat, you got twin pops (lime, banana, or root beer). If you were running a fever, you laid on the couch with a cool wet rag on your forehead chewing baby aspirin, tiny little pills that I thought tasted like orange creamsicles. For a bad cold, my mom would rub Vick's on my tight chest, then put a warm kitchen towel on top of the Vick's. To soothe a croupy cough, hot lemonade with honey was her secret elixir. There was also Campbell's chicken noodle soup, cold Sprite, and Luden's Cough Drops.

In addition to all the edible goodies that came with being sick, you got to sit in the big red Lazy-Boy and watch television most of the day. In our house, especially if you were sick on a school day, there really wasn't a big selection of shows to watch. Most of this had to do with the fact that we didn't have cable television. But because everyone else was in school, the sick-o got free reign on what five channels to watch. In the morning, if I were the sick one, I would catch some Sesame Street or Mr. Roger's Neighborhood before vomiting up the Sprite and saltines my mom gave me for breakfast. After the vomiting was over, I would crash while Mr. Slim Goodbody pranced gaily about in his latex suit of nerves, vessels, muscles, and organs.  Upon waking, if I were lucky, I could sometimes catch PBS's Masterpiece Theatre. The theatre du jour varied from illness to illness. One that has always stood out in my memory is The Yellow Wallpaper. The Yellow Wallpaper is about a neurotic woman named Charlotte who goes to the country side to get "well", but ends up losing her marbles over the patterned wallpaper in her bedroom; yellow wallpaper, of course. There was just something about watching a woman "creep" her way to insanity as I drifted in and out of fever dreams, that will forever make me associate horrible flues to PBS theatre. Not necessarily a bad thing, in my world.

My mom also had a thick, dark fuchsia, fleece robe that she would let us wear when we were sick. It was called "the fuzzy robe". Having that soft robe wrapped around me magically took the edge off of horrible body aches and incapacitating nausea. It was the best substitute for actually being held in my mother's arms all day long.

Now that I'm an adult, when I get sick I long for the days of the fuzzy robe, the red Lazy-Boy, Campbell's chicken noodle soup, icy Sprite, warm chest towels, and Masterpiece Theatre. Maybe it's not necessarily all the things that went along with being sick, it was having a mother around to provide all those things to me. Now...well, now I'm pretty much on my own. Although, I must give credit to my husband; he brings Jamba Juice and 7UP with him on his way home from work. It's just, he's not my mom.

Even when we're all grown up, I believe most of us long for our mothers when we're ill.

That's all.

Love,
Charise