TheBanyanTree: FAMILY MOVIES

[Sharon Mack]

FAMILY MOVIES
By Sharon A. Mack
February 27, 2004 

I am sitting here at my desk with tons of work to do listening to Claire de lune by Debussy and instead of attacking the mounds of work; the music begins to act as a background song for the family movies playing in my brain.  You know the ones, black and white with the speed not quite right, no sound.  

In them I am young and I see my first born son who came out screaming after only one hour and thirty-five minutes of labor, who crowned six times and finally had to have his head held so he wouldn't go back in.  He took one look outside that womb and said "no thanks!"  The smudge on his little brow looked like a birthmark but it was the Doctor's thumbprint.  As the film is running I wave with my free hand as my son suckles at my breast while nurses do a clean up job below the film's frame.  His father stood near.  It is one of the few good pictures I have of him.

Then the film snaps to a little brown boy with thin little legs who lies on the floor to get his diaper changed and be put in his jampies (pajamas) for the night.  We wave at the camera and he stands up (no diaper on yet) and you see him mouth, "Mommy, can I do a run, run, run.....can I do a run, run, run?  Now?"  I smile big and nod my head and off he goes, down the hall as fast as his little legs could carry him, back and forth, back and forth, completely naked, until he plops down in front of me exhausted and breathing hard for a snuggle and a kiss and his diaper and jampies at last.


Brrrrrrrtttthhh, you can hear the sound that the old film makes going through the tracks as the film continues to move forward.  I see a lean boy of twelve signing up for Pop Warner football.  There I am.  I am waving with a serious worried frown on my face.  I don't think I really wanted my picture taken.  Dad is nowhere in the scene by now. I am unsure of setting my son up for a situation in which he could get hurt.  Ahhh, there's his younger brother.  He's a big boy for nine and there's the man talking to him about signing him up, too.  You can see me getting visibly upset.  I wasn't sure about one boy, I definitely am not sure about both boys.  Yikes.  I tell the man he is too young and the man says no he's not and before I know it both are Lions, one on the A team, one on the B team.  It was here I began to learn the game of football.

The film breaks and stops and I have to put it back together.  After the fuzzy broken part whizzes by, the film comes back into focus again. I see the boy growing and playing football for his high school team.  He waves looking back over his shoulder, a little shy at first but by the time he's on the track team he has lost his shyness and now I am watching a camcorder video a friend took of him and his friend Alisha doing their act.  I am laughing out loud at their antics.  They feed off one another.  They are hilarious.  They are stars.  Their mothers think so anyway!

The music on the radio has changed.  It is Mozart's Flute Concerto No. 2.  The color video has ended and the black and white reel begins again.  He is graduating.  I know his robe is purple but I only see it as dark gray and the tassel is merely lighter.  He holds his diploma in his left hand and stands still for the photos.  He lifts his right hand and waves and the robe slowly disappears and becomes a uniform*.his Coast guard uniform and we are all at Cape May.  It is summer and we all wave for the camera and afterward take film of the gazebo we sit and drink in and we celebrate the young man's future.

The music is ending now and so is the film in my mind.  Pfffffffttttt!  I hear it as it slaps through the reels and comes to a stop.  I wait now.  I wait because I want the next film to be in color.  I want it to be twice as long and I want him to continue to smile and wave at the camera and mouth his words to me once more,  "Mom, can I go for a run, run, run now? Mom, can I?  Now?"  And I want to be able to say yes and watch that run, run, run for a very long time!!!