Snapped

 The sun was setting as I rushed through the motion of snapping my way through several quarts of green beans. My backyard is roughly the size of the family garden I grew up with as a child but I planted roots and planted seeds for whatever small harvest I could manage. 

As I sat through the mindless task of snapping beans I thought back to the times I spent on a front porch with family completing the same task thousands of time. Snapping beans was a job everyone in the house could handle and everyone was required to help. We'd laugh and talk while the piles of scraps and the buckets of cleaned beans grew. 

Once as a child, I sat with my mother snapping beans. We were the only ones home and began the chore before my older sisters came home from school and my father from work. We would swing and snap with my stubby legs not quite reaching the ground. I remember a fondness for hearing my mother's laugh and often found myself play acting to make her smile. I snapped open a bean and dug my little fingers into the pod to remove the pale green bean. I took the perfectly sized pearl and stuck it in my nose. "Look, mom, a booger!" She looked and laughed then chided me to be careful. I had laughed at the sound of hers and inhaled a bit too deeply. The bean which had been perfectly grown to fit the pod was now perfectly wedged into my nose... just deep enough my little finger could not get it out. 

After realizing my predicament my mother looked at me in that 'I told you so' way mothers do and put her hands firmly on her hips. "See, now what will you do?" I instantly burst into tears. The fear of living forever with produce in my nose was real. What would I do? Would I ever breathe through that nostril again? My mother remained calm. Not once did she panic. We went through the steps of holding one side and blowing the other, tweezers and toothpicks were considered but in the end we decided it was best to smash the side of my nose and make a bean paste.

My mother was fearless. I say this knowing I tested her patience and her nerves on a regular basis. I was fairly accident prone and made more than one trip to the emergency room as a child. My mother always knew what to do and always managed to keep me calm. She could be terrified inside and yet hold it all together for the sake of her child's fear.  But now that same woman watches grandkids which leave her nerves frayed. 

I watch her as a grandmother experience similar episodes with a much different demeanor. Recently, a frantic text message followed by numerous phone calls went unanswered as I was at work. Upon realizing the messages I called mom to hear that my son had shoved a popcorn kernel up his nose and her anxiety about removing the object had pushed her over the edge. Luckily my sister had stopped to visit and, being a mother of her two young children, jumped into action and calmly mothered my son into blowing the kernel from his nose. My mother had had an anxiety attack thanks to a situation made worse by time and the subject being a grandchild and not her own child. 

Mother's are equipped with an arsenal of tools but patience, adrenaline, and response time are some of our greatest. It seems these tools fade and lose their edge with age so that by the time grandkids come they are rusty. One tool that a mother never loses is her unconditional capability of love. In this season of thanks, take a moment to thank the woman who loved and raised you without fear. This November I am thankful for my mother's nerves of steel. Even if they are no longer as rigid as they used to be.