She Only Swore Once—And It was At me.

Swearing and bad language was not permitted in our home. I don't remember the rule ever being expressed or spelled out for us. Rather, it was implied and already in place before I learned to talk. My parents taught by example and my older brothers also lived by their code of conduct. I didn't know how unusual this was until I was in high school. When I was in the 10th grade, one of my teachers asked everyone in the class who had never spoken a swear word to raise their hand. I raised my hand and looked around to see how many others had raised a hand. That is when I noticed that everyone was looking at me! None had raised a hand. Many tried to get me to admit that I was not being truthful. But it WAS the truth. The teacher said that he hoped that we would try hard to "never loose our never haves." He went on to explain that it should be our goal to be able to truthfully say "I have never smoked." or " I have never tasted alcohol." or "I have never used drugs." and other things like that. Never swearing was a "never have" that almost everyone had already lost. I had never heard my father swear in spite of the fact that he had served as a soldier through five years of World War II. And, even now, he worked every day with people who swore and used bad language all the time. I figured that if he could have that much self control, so could I. If my dad could be considered a saint (and I believe he could), then my mother qualified as an angel. In my mind she was as near perfect as a person could be. That is why it hurt so much when I heard her swear only once and it was at me. We had finally gotten our long, steep dirt driveway up our hill paved with concrete. It had gotten dirty and she wanted to wash it off with our garden hose. She asked me to hand the running hose to her over the top of the bushes between our lawn and the driveway. I was short and had trouble seeing over the top of the bushes. I accidentally doused her with the cold water from the hose. She was so shocked that she yelled "Terry, _ _ _ _ you!" If the cold water had shocked her, the hot words from my mother scalded me. They reverberated in my head over and over. I dropped the hose and ran. I ran all the way to the woods beyond our neighborhood where I could be by myself to think. It had been an accident, yet my angel mother swore at me. I had never heard her swear even once and she swore AT ME! I cried and considered what had happened. What I had done had been an accident. I was short and inexperienced and a little clumsy. Could it be that she was a little short-sighted, inexperienced and clumsy too? I finally found the courage to go back home. If I had been sad, then my mother was truly distraught. It was worse for her. She was so very, very sorry. If she could have called her words back, she would have done it. But she could not. We had another of those heart to heart talks between a mother and her son. She explained that she really was not perfect. She had made a mistake and wounded a very sensitive son. Could I please forgive her? We forgave each other and recognized that we had both learned some important lessons. One of those lessons was that holding others and even ourselves up to impossibly high standards can set us up for terrible disappointment and hurt. The important thing is to work such things out in an atmosphere of mutual respect and love. Then one must move on with life and living, knowing that more lessons will come. We learn love and wisdom one step at a time. And sometimes it hurts. But oh how much greater becomes our capacity to love better and more completely! 

Terry Stephens