Mother's Day, Moles, and Mantles

“Mom.  Come here!  Quick.”  My son is squatting down by a rock pointing at something black and furry with a tail.  It scurries under a rock, darts over the grass, and starts burrowing in the ground.  I squat down too and take a closer look.  Uggh… It’s a mole.  And it’s responsible for the mounds of dirt and tracks we get in our yard every year.  I hate these things.  “Give me the bat Tyler…” I regretfully request.  He hands it over; his eyes peeled on the enthusiastic rodent. 

I lift my arms to swing the bat, but lose my resolve.  I can’t do it.  I can’t crush a mole in front of my son.  His eyes are still peeled and I can tell the thing is gaining ground…literally.  I’m torn between letting the thing reek its havoc in our front yard or getting over my fear of squashing a live thing to its death… in front of my son… with his bat.    

So, I do what any woman of sound mind would do.  I call for back up.  We are screaming in unison, “Hurry!  Come here!” as the thing sinks lower and lower in the ground.  My husband arrives… almost too late.  And he has no problem banging that bat down on the moving earth.  He has patting down more molehills than I have. 

“He’s dead…” he remarks casually and hands Tyler the bat.  My son is in shock… “Dad, that’s one of God’s creatures…”

 “Well he’s with God now” my husband replies. 

My son is still squatting down, watching the now motionless, belly up mole.

I’m happy as the innocent bystander and only a witness to the crime.   

That answer seems to work.  He can dig molehills up in heaven, and we soon get distracted trying to figure out how to dispose of the animal and marveling at just how long its claws are. 

I am happy I made the right decision.  We moms have to think twice about what to bang in the head and when to do it. 

Had this been a head of lettuce, I would have had no problem banging the heck out of it. 

But, I start to think of my immediate impulse as a woman, mom, and gardener… On Mother’s Day, I wanted to bang that thing that was rooting through my ground in the head with a bat. 

I wanted it dead.  Not captured or stunned, but dead. 

I think this is how all moms are wired.  We plant the seeds in our children’s lives, we water the seeds, we watch them grow, and we sure the hell don’t want any trespassers chewing through it! 

Earlier, not two feet from the alleged misdemeanor, I was having a nice conversation with my neighbor.  She brought over a late Christmas gift, which made for a wonderful Mother’s Day gift.  It was a wine holder with the bottle swinging in a small hammock strapped to palm trees on a beach… It’s going on my mantle.  Everything about the gift says, “Relax.  Lay down.  Drink me.” 

I have to laugh that fifteen minutes after receiving this relaxing, symbolic gift I am poised over a mole with a bat and my bug eyed son yelling, “Don’t kill it mom!”   

It’s the story of our lives as mothers.  What we deserve and want more of (sleep, wine, and a vacation) sits on our mantle, while the unexpected reality (a live mole crawling through our garden) waits for us around the corner.     

It’s all how we swing the bat that gets us to the next inning.