Love and Death And Winning at Tickle Tiger

 When we were growing up we would play this game called Tickle Tiger with my father.  We would all crawl around our rather large living room.  Dad would roar and chase us and if he caught us he would tickle us until we were giggling little slugs rolled into tiny balls on the floor.

For my sisters and brothers and me, it was the best game in the world.  Dad was a really big guy, over six feet tall and had played football in high school and college.  He had an amazing laugh that could make us laugh even before he got close enough to us to tickle us.   Dad would play until he had rendered us all senseless.

Sometimes mom would join the game.  When that happened dad would chase mom behind the couch, and it would become very quiet.  Eventually we would climb up onto the couch to look and we would find them; mom wrapped in dad's arms and they would be kissing.

Once when my younger brother Matt was three and we found them behind the couch he said " Dad you don't 'posed to kiss her you 'posed to tickle her, silly."  But I was six and much wiser and I knew that our game of Tickle Tiger was over, and mom had won.

My parents had an amazingly loving relationship.  They produced nine children, and were never embarrassed to show affection in front of us.  They often sat at the table in the morning over one last cup of coffee before dad had to leave for work holding hands and chatting about nothing in particular.

When I was 12, my dad got sick and a very tense year later died of a brain tumor.  My mother suddenly had to become totally chaste, not by her own choosing, but because of a circumstance beyond her control.    I had always hoped that she would find love again, but she always maintained that there was only one love for her in this world.    For the next 38 years she lived waiting for the day when she and my dad would be united once again.

When my mom died early last fall  (just days after her and dad's wedding anniversary) she was reunited with my dad.  They are buried together in a military cemetery, which means they share the same burial plot and headstone with dad's information on the front and mom's on the back.  When she was buried I could imagine dad's arms outstretched waiting to wrap them around mom in a loving and eternal embrace.  They are together forever.

I miss mom every day, but when I think about how they are buried, in that loving embrace, I realize that she is exactly where she has wanted to be for a really, really long time.   I know she is happy there.  The game is over,  mom has won again.

Happy Mother's Day mom.

Pax

A Love Story

On August 20, 1949 at St Anthony Catholic Church in Davenport Iowa, the lanky football star in the picture above married his college sweetheart and they embarked on their life together. They are my parents Mike and Tess Scheck on their wedding day 59 years ago.

They raised nine children and lived together for twenty-four years before cancer took dad's life at the age of 48. Mom had to soldier on alone after that because six of the children were still living at home and needed her to be strong for them.

I realized this year that mrangelmeg and I have been granted the gift of a longer marriage than my parents were given. I feel so blessed, because I owe so much to my parents. Without their example of total self-giving love I am not sure I would understand how to be a married woman.

I still remember their morning ritual of coffee together, when they would sit and discuss the minutia of their day. To an outsider it might have looked humdrum, but I could see the simple gestures that passed between them; his getting up to refill her cup, her hand resting lightly on his arm, the way they passed the morning paper sections back and forth between them; each was so infused with devotion.

Then she would follow him out to the hallway as he left for work; he walked because the school where he taught was only a few blocks away. They would linger over one last kiss at the door, her hand lost in the hair at the back of his neck. And then he would smile and leave for the day.

She told me once years after he died that she had trouble sleeping in the bed they shared without him beside her. This is something I can relate to completely because I struggle sleeping without mrangelmeg even when he is on travel for a few nights let alone weeks or months. I would shudder to think of having to imagine him never returning to the bed we have shared all these years.

I know my parents must have argued, but I can't remember ever hearing them have a huge screaming fight. If they ever got frustrated with each other they seemed to be able to work out their differences without taking it out on each other. Although my dad did have a habit of sweeping the front room with a broom whenever he needed to release pent up aggression. Whenever he was doing that, we knew to stay away until he calmed down (or went to confession, whichever came first).

Anyway, I wanted to honor my parents today. I went to visit mom yesterday. I lit a candle for Dad today. Happy anniversary mom and dad.

Pax