Welcome to the Month of Mom. Judith (I’d like to insert her middle name here, but she REALLY didn’t like it, so I’m not sharing it with you here – smile) was a child of April – which makes her an Aries who was born and raised in the 1940s. According to Google’s AI overview, Aries are “characterized by a fiery, confident, and energetic nature.” They are enthusiastic, courageous, independent, impulsive, determined, and passionate. Wow. That pretty much describes Mom.

She and her sister were dancers. She was an EMT. She was a hospice volunteer. She was an adult literacy volunteer. She was a volunteer at her grandchildren’s elementary school. She led a Campfire Girls unit. She was a daughter, a granddaughter, a spouse, a parent. She did all these things and more. She also was creative. She loved renovating houses and decorating and re-decorating her own home. She loved coloring. She also loved to write, so, for this Month of Mom, I’ll be sharing in three parts a short story she wrote in the 1980s.

Once upon a time there was a princess, a very beautiful and delicate princess to be sure.

Tina lay in her bed this particular Saturday morning thinking when she heard herself saying aloud, “Whatever made me wake up thinking about The Princess and the Pea?” Feeling foolish that she was speaking aloud with no one there, she looked around in embarrassment making sure no one had, in fact, heard her. She vowed to continue her wonderment in silence.

Could it be this new bedding, being thick and luxurious as it is, that caused my thoughts to focus on that particular fairy tale?

She seemed to answer her own question as she snuggled, rolled, and snuggled again deep into the softness of the luscious satin comforter her father had given her on her eighteenth birthday. What an extravagance! He had always been so conservative, partly out of necessity, partly because it was just his nature. Everyone knew him as such. Many because of the 12-year-old car he drove, still looking new and on its first set of tires. Surely the rubber would rot right off the wheels causing him an untimely demise! How she had hoped not. She loved him very much, and he was all she had now that her mother was gone.

Even the clerks at the grocery took notice of his being conservative as they checked out the items he purchased; staples purchased in large economy sizes, getting the most for the dollar, while foods such as meats were bought only in just the right portions. What bothered Tina most was that he never bought butter. Oh, how she hated that cheap lard-tasting margarine!

She turned to gaze at the picture of her mother and father, which she kept near her bed. It was a picture of happier times for all of them. As she turned, she caught a glimpse of her long brunette curls contrasting against the creamy colored satin pillow shams like a dark chocolate sauce flowing down a mound of mocha ice cream, and she forgot the picture, as once again, her thoughts turned to The Princess and the Pea.

Giving an impish giggle, followed by one quick look of admonition to herself in the mirror because of her delight in her own beauty, she sprang to her knees on the bed and began folding, arranging, and stacking her bedding in such a way as to form her own pile of mattresses. Could she pass the test? What could she use as the pea?

As she, clad in her favorite green pajamas, slid her tanned body to the floor, her toe caught in the folds of the comforter and brought the entire stack to a tangled heap on the carpet. Try as she might, she was not able to stop the avalanche of pillows, blankets, and comforters in time to save her own tower of luxury. Briefly, she damned the slick satin sheets – the very thing for which she had longed, lo, these many years – blaming them for her tower’s fall.

Once again she was intent on searching for a pea, leaving the mass of luxury lying on the floor next to the nearly naked bed. She crossed the room and, looking back at the bed, shivered as the picture of the bare slab at the mortuary came to mind. The bundle of bedding on the floor reminded her of her mother as she lay dressed in a fur coat at the base of that cold hard slab where she had fallen upon identifying Robert’s body.