Photo: My family about the time of this story, when I was 1 year old and my sister was an infant.

Mother’s Day brings to mind stories my mother used to tell. She said before I was born, when she was barely 20, the doctor said I was going to be a big baby with a big head, and since she was built small, I would have to be born by cesarean section. Mother said she and Daddy worried that “big head” meant maybe I had a “water on the brain” condition. Turned out I didn’t, but I did have a head full of ideas from a young age.

By the time I was 9 months, Mother was 6 months pregnant with my little sister, and since I still wasn’t a tiny, delicate child, she couldn’t be picking me up and carrying me around. And Daddy was busy going to college (studying for the ministry) and working side jobs.

So, I got up on my own two feet and started walking at 9 months.

Then when I was 12 months, my sister was born. No one had much time to watch me, so I entertained myself, I guess. One day I toddled into a flower bed, sat down and picked up a snail. Toddlers learn about things by putting them in their mouths, and I must have wanted to learn about that snail.

When my horrified Mother found me gumming what was left of the dirty, slimy mollusk, she panicked. She scooped me up, ran into the little house, and washed my mouth out with soap. I must have wailed about that; but she was still so worried, she lugged my crying young self over to the next-door neighbor, Dr. Orpha Speicher, a medical missionary on furlough.

Dr. Speicher, for whom Mother (and our small denomination) had great respect, said not to worry. A garden snail and a little dirt wouldn’t hurt me. A missionary to the poor in India, she had seen much worse!

In my curiosity, during young childhood I learned about many other things by tasting them, but probably never snails again. Once, years later, I had the opportunity to taste escargot. I tried it but didn’t like it. Maybe because of the subconscious association of soap in my mouth and a panicky young mother?

That wasn’t the only time Mother washed my mouth out with soap as a young child. But later it was because of what came out of my mouth, not what I put into my mouth. I don’t eat snails to this day; and I don’t cuss, either. (And I’m glad I grew up free to explore and also to consider consequences of my actions.)

Mother died in her 40s and Daddy lived to 90. But both are gone from us now. My sister is busy with other things. So, if the stories are going to be told, I have to stand on my own two feet and tell them myself!