After Mother Remarried
by Wilda Morris

Remember Sis, how our new dad came home from work,
ate supper gratefully, thanking Mother, then rose
and washed dishes, baked apple pie for tomorrow.

Remember how he turned on the TV in the den, dozed off
soon after the nightly news came on. How he sometimes
fell asleep reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar

or Roddy, the Mixer Truck to our little brother and sisters,
how he helped to feed and dress and change them,
took more than his share of turns getting up in the night

when they were cutting teeth. Remember those Saturdays
he cooked oatmeal or pancakes for the family breakfast
before sweeping and mopping the kitchen floor,

and how, though he didn’t especially like classical music,
he sat through orchestra concerts while you ran the bow
across your viola strings, how he sometimes napped

in the auditorium before the program ended. He played
taxi driver to all five of us kids, and on Sundays, picked up
physically-challenged children, brought them to Sunday School.

After church, he took the children to their home
before returning for his family This was not a man who lived
in the twenty-first century, but a man ahead of his time,

a man with a big heart, with hands always wanting to help.



 

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