Unsung pleasure

Mama used to sing "Old Rugged Cross" enthusiastically when she washed the dishes, as if Jesus died on that cross so we could have food on the table and give thanks for being able to clean up after the family dinner. Leading up to Christmas Mama would switch to the hymns of the season.

"Silent night, holy night," she'd sing or hum, as she stacked the sparkling dishes to air dry on the counter. "Hark, the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king" and a verse of "O Holy Night," and she'd be done.

When I was very young, I begged to wash the dishes. Mama would always say, "You're not quite old enough yet," and that just made me want to wash the dishes even more, as if it were a rite of passage like starting school or learning to ride a bike.

Growing up, we didn't have a dishwasher. I still don't, and neither does my mother. I think I know why.

Mama doesn't trust dishwashers to get things clean, and she thinks if you're going to rinse a dish you might as well wash it while you're at it. Like me, she probably doesn't even know how to load a dishwasher. Eat at Mama's house, and you can be confident your dishes and utensils have no food or soap dried onto them, and the glasses will sparkle like disco balls.

When I was about 6, Mama finally let me wash the supper dishes. Her only instruction to me was "You have to be fast as well as efficient."

As mothers often have over the years, she'd outsmarted her child. While I was washing and butchering "Old Rugged Cross," having what I thought was a fine — and very mature — time, Mama sat in her easy chair, read the paper and had another glass of tea.

It didn't take too many weeks before I found myself scrubbing the pots and pans and wishing them "on a hill far away" from the crowded sink.

Things have come full circle over the past decades.

Mama cooks a huge dinner on holidays to feed our extended family of 10, plus friends. Mounds of dressing, rice and butterbeans, macaroni and cheese, squash casserole, sweet potato souffle, turkey, ham or pork loin and all the other dishes we love weigh down the table. There are so many dirty dishes they won't all fit in the sink, and they clutter the counters. They have to be washed and put away in shifts.

Immediately my sister Cindy and I and her adult daughters spring up to clear the table. We start washing the dishes, and Mama says, "Just leave those. I can wash them tomorrow when you're all gone. I don't have to wash them all at once. I can stop and rest if I need to."

We get those dishes washed, dried and put away faster than any electric dishwasher. The glasses sparkle as they air dry — but not as much as Mama's eyes.

I think she's just happy we all love her so much and want to please her and spend our holiday with her — but maybe she's just outfoxed us again?