LESSON #1: Mothers are Miracle Workers

There’s an old Jewish Proverb that perfectly describes my mother: “God could not be everywhere, so he created mothers”.



L-R: Ryan, Bartholomew, Shawn, Tara, and Jason

My mother was not only the deity we revered, but also the one we’d pray to for miracles. Her days were filled with prayers like ‘not having to eat all the peas on our plate’, ‘getting an extra-big scoop of ice cream for dessert’ and ‘being aloud to stay up late to watch TV’. Though she wasn’t able to answer all of our prayers, my mother had a knack for knowing which ones were the most important.

As children, when we weren’t asking mum for miracles, we were usually found playing with our favorite stuffed toy Bartholomew – the biggest teddy bear any of us had ever seen.

We all loved him – all 5 of us kids – like he was one of the family. We sat with him while watching TV, taking turns sitting in the delicious spot snuggled in between his massive fuzzy legs, letting his gigantic arms envelope our tiny bodies. We napped using his paws as pillows – a kid each side. We dressed him up in costumes, and cast him in our plays. We even sat with him at dinner.

My father bought Bartholomew before my brother Ryan was born, so Bartholomew was undoubtedly the most constant presence in his early childhood. Being over 4 years younger than the child closest to his age (which was Jason), Bartholomew soon became the only older brother that didn’t treat him like the baby.  

For a three year old, being constantly told that you’re “too young” is incomprehensible. How could he always be too young? Too young last week… sure, that he could understand. But this week? What the hell?

In those early days of baby-ness, Ryan would often run to mum, a crying mess… if anyone could right these wrongs, certainly she could. Surely she’d see the injustice – the age discrimination – and rule in his favour. 

Mum’s solution to many of our disagreements was affection and flattery. If we were distressed, she’d distract us with cuddles and smooth talk us until we forgot why we were ever upset in the first place.

In Ryan’s case, the cuddles came to him on two fronts: mum and Bartholomew. But his individualized soothing rhetoric was always the same “one day, little one, you will grow up to be the Strongest, Tallest and Wisest of all my boys.”

The idea of one day dominating his brothers in more ways than one, brought a smile to Ryan’s little face. All he had to do was bite his time. Eventually, whenever Ryan was excluded, all my mother had to say was “STW” and he’d smile again… simply trusting our mother’s prediction.

It’s no surprise that, out of all of us, Ryan was the child you could safely describe as ‘happy-go-lucky’ when he first started school. It seemed to stem from an amazing amount of self-confidence… but not the arrogant type that’s so prevalent among high-powered stock brokers. No. His was the type of confidence that was also incredibly endearing. STW confidence.  

When Ryan’s teacher suggested he repeat Grade 1, my parents were understandably nervous about the consequences. Certainly repeating a grade would dampen his enviable confidence; squash his young spirit? After all, how could something so significant in a young child’s early development not affect his later development? And the timing couldn’t be worse: after recently having a 5^th child, Ryan was already going through an identity crisis.

So my parents did what any sensitive and loving parent would do in the same situation. They lied.

According to Ryan, it was about half way through the first semester, when it dawned on him that he wasn’t, in fact, Miss Teacher‘s ‘Special Helper’; the one shining student who was carefully selected from the previous year to help ‘break-in’ the new crop of school-goers. I have no idea what the catalyst for this realization was, or why it took him so long, but I do know that it coincided with the biggest event on the Grade 1 calendar: the annual Teddy Bear Picnic.

Being a veteran, Ryan saw the picnic as his one opportunity to prove to everyone how wrong they were to make him, of all people, repeat a year of school. And how was he going to do that? By winning the coveted prize for the Biggest Teddy Bear, of course.

Bartholomew was the key (if not only) factor in receiving his rightful retribution. “Look at how big that teddy bear is!” they’d all marvel as they awarded him his rightful prize. It would be the shining jewel in his social crown, sure to earn him a superstar level of popularity. No one would ever think of him as the boy who repeated Grade 1. Instead, he’d be known as the legendary kid with the Biggest Teddy Bear. 

Unfortunately, Ryan hadn’t accounted for the reaction he got from our mother when he announced his master plan.

“No” mum dead-panned, “Bartholomew is a house-bear, only.”

Through a stream of tears, his big brown eyes searching our mother’s face for mercy, Ryan begged. But mum’s resolve was set, and she simply refused to put Bartholomew’s fate in the hand of child who had a penchant for drawing on her otherwise pristine white walls.

Ryan was understandably devastated. And no amount of STW talk would calm him this time. How could she do this to him? Ruin his life? His own mother!

To Ryan, Bartholomew always existed, and belonged to all of us, collectively. He simply could not understand why our mother was being so protective over him.

To our mother, Bartholomew was the gift my father gave her after she suffered the loss of a stillborn child. One she was forced to carry to full-term. A baby boy with red hair named Shane.

I was only 5 years old when my mother was pregnant with Shane, so I don’t remember much. I don’t recall being too upset when Shane didn’t come home from the hospital with mum, simply because my life didn’t change. Besides, the fact that our mother was an absolute emotional and physical wreck was overshadowed by the fact there was an awesomely big teddy bear in the house.

Looking back on those first couple of years without Shane, I recall several afternoons when mum would hold onto Bartholomew as much as we did…  her face dewy with tears; her head laying on his fuzzy legs next to us.

Ryan went to school the day of the Teddy Bear Picnic without Bartholomew. But there were no tears. Instead, Ryan opted to believe that, if winning the Biggest Teddy Bear prize mattered, mum would find a way to make sure he’d win without Bartholomew. She’d perform a mother miracle.

That afternoon, just before the Teddy Bear Picnic started, our mother arrived at the school with a 6ft Teddy Bear in tow. Ryan’s jaw dropped at the spectacle, as did all his friends and teachers… each of them marveling at the sight of our father dressed in a Teddy Bear costume (the best one my mother could find on short notice).

Ryan was no longer the kid who repeated Grade 1, but the kid who brought the biggest teddy bear ever to any Grade 1 Teddy Bear Picnic, in the history of all Teddy Bear Picnics.

And Bartholomew is still intact, a perfectly preserved house bear.