Two of My Mother's Loves

My mother loved poetry. And she loved Scotland.

Years earlier--back in the 1960s--she was teaching high school English in Garrettsville, Ohio, and co-wrote (with Hiram College professor John Shaw) a book about the teaching of poetry. (See pic at the top of the page.) You can still get copies on ABE. (Her older brother, Ronald, used to tease her that she should have called it Making Work out of Poetry--she would smile, but I could tell she didn't care for that--not one bit ... but, hey, what are siblings for?)

She had also negotiated with eminent poet/literary critic John Ciardi about co-writing a book with him, and I remember his visit to our house in Hiram. But ... it fell through. I never asked Mom why. (Link to Wikipedia entry on Ciardi.)

One of my great memories ... After our son's wedding in August 1999 (in Youngstown), I drove Mom back to her home in western Mass. (she was about to turn 80), and along I-80 I recited aloud for her the scores of poems I'd memorized by then. She was ... surprised? That's a weak word--but accurate. Of her three sons I was the latest bloomer, that's for sure. I did so-so in high school and college, and it wasn't until grad school that I began taking it all seriously, and it was then, early in my teaching career, that I morphed into the Super Nerd I now am. And ever hope to be.

Anyway, as I was reeling off the poems for her, I could have measured her surprise on a Geiger counter. Dare I say that I was pleased ...?

And as for Scotland? She had lived there for a while as a little girl while her father, G. Edwin Osborn (the G was for "George," a name he hated and never used), completed his course work and residency at the University of Edinburgh (Ph.D. in theology).

Years later--her final trip abroad?--my younger brother took Mom back there, and she got to see the place where they had lived, got to relive it all. It must have been an overwhelmingly powerful experience for her because all of the rest of her family were gone: mother, father, brother.

And so she loved all things Scotland the rest of her life, from girlhood to the end. From shortbread to plaids. From pie to poetry.

Now the connection ... When my mother died, I resolved to memorize, in her honor, a poem by Robert Burns (1759-96; link to info on him). I waited a bit, picked one ("A Red, Red Rose"), and just this morning it was firmly enough in my memory that I recited it for Joyce ... a couple of stumbles. (My mother would have told me I needed to do a little more work before I "went public"--though "went public" is not an expression she ever used--or would use).

And she would have been right. She usually was. But, Mom, I might argue now, it was the tears that made me stumble.

A Red, Red Rose

By Robert Burns

O my Luve is like a red, red rose

   That’s newly sprung in June;

O my Luve is like the melody

   That’s sweetly played in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

   So deep in luve am I;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

   Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

   And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;

I will love thee still, my dear,

   While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve!

   And fare thee weel awhile!

And I will come again, my luve,

   Though it were ten thousand mile.

Robert Burns