Momma never liked school

Story written for freshman college assignment...I was 40 at the time. Old for a freshman. Story is old, too.

Momma never liked school. She said she was teased at school and at home for that matter because she had red hair and skinny legs.  Whenever I didn’t want to go to school which was more often than not, my momma would tell me a story about what she did when she didn’t want to go to school.  She told of faking fevers and fainting spells and even putting toothpaste up her nose to get a nosebleed.  The story I liked most was when she told the “Big Lie”.  She was about ten years old and was trying to come up with a story to get out of going to school while she walked there one cold morning.  She decided hastily that she’d run home and tell her momma that she saw a dead body in the creek that she passed every day on her way to school.  She thought she would cry a few crocodile tears, act real “skeered”, and maybe even get to crawl back into her bed for the day instead of babysitting the three babies still at home.  She didn’t go back to bed.  She had to take the local police and the FBI (if you can believe that) and her momma down to the creek to show them where and what she saw.  I don’t think she ever admitted to lying.  She hemmed and hawed and finally it was agreed upon by all parties that she had quite an imagination when just an old red shirt was found in the creek.  My grandma was mad as fire because she had to miss work.  My momma felt guilty about lying and I don’t think she told another lie to get out of school for a couple of months at least.  Momma said that I should go to school because one day I might really be sick and need to stay home.  Momma also said I should never lie because lies would always, always come back to bite you.  She’d pull the story out and tell it, smiling at her own silliness.  I’d laugh.  She always enjoyed telling me this story because it made me happy.  She didn’t have a happy childhood.  She was one of eight children and was abused mentally and physically.  Her father was an alcoholic and her mother was hard-hearted or maybe just had a hard life.  As I grew older, I stopped laughing when I thought about her story.  I could picture her dragging her feet all the way to school.  She was mostly teased for being poor and stupid.  She was way behind in her school because she preferred daydreaming and drawing to studying.  She was quiet and lonely.   No one paid much attention to her at school or at home.  They paid attention to her the day she told the “Big Lie”, though.  I think she got more than she bargained for and it seems to me she tried to hide from the spotlight from that moment on.  She decided that she didn’t like or deserve the attention and that was okay by her.  That may have been the day my momma started lying to herself and never stopped but that’s another story, my story.  She died a few years ago and I wished I had told her that she was never a skinny, stupid redhead to me.  She was my hero because she gave me laughter and love and an imagination.    

Author's Note

I want to be a writer. I need to be a writer. I have a story to tell...will anyone want to hear it? Can I bear to tell it?

Reviews

[Jana Greene]

I want to hear your story, all of it. And you can bear to tell as much as the Lord inspires you to tell. You are already helping me by writing. I wish I'd have known your momma. I would confirm to her what she already knows - her daughter is amazing.

[Samuel Dickens]

I enjoyed this very much, partly because it's a great story and you told it so well, and partly because some of it is eerily familiar. My oldest sister claimed she couldn't go to school anymore because someone had called her the N-word, even though she wasn't black but just dark-complected. I don't know what the truth was, but it's a fact that some children can really be cruel to their classmates. Back to your story, though, it's a real hoot. I always just got lost on the way to school and sneeked back home after everyone had left, but making up a story about a body---now that's creative!

[Sunny Lea]

Yes, tell your story. You have touched something that is familiar to me. That is what your writing can do. Oh, the stories we can tell can also heal. I am beginning to understand the importance of telling the story. Thank you.