Heart Stopper

 My mom was a prepper before prepping was really a thing. Everyone had to be back in the old country. Otherwise, your kids would grow up malnourished at best and starve at worst. The rations that were handed out to the citizens weren’t meant to keep them functioning at peak performance or provide the necessary vitamins and nutrients for a human; they were barely enough to subsist, survive, get by, and not die for another day.

It’s not that we as children ever did without. My mother was the industrious sort, and she would barter eggs from our chickens for milk with one neighbor, cheese with another, grow strawberries in the summer, pick apples from our trees, can, brine, confit, dry, cold store in the cellar, and set aside so that there was never a time I can remember when there was nothing to eat in the house. Couple that with my grandfather’s ability to catch fish, whether with a pole, a net, or his bare hands, and although the menu didn’t vary much, we never went to bed hungry.

By the time I was eight, I was the Bubba Blue of fish. There was fried fish, poached fish, broiled fish, grilled fish, stuffed fish, fish head soup, pickled fish, brined fish, fish omelet, fish stew, and other dishes that didn’t have a name. Never fish ice cream, though. Sometimes you have to be thankful for the small things. It’s no wonder I don’t participate in the Friday fish fries Wisconsin is so famous for. I was fished out by the time I was nine.

One of the things my mom loved to do during summer was to go foraging for mushrooms. We lived in a village surrounded by forests, and because one of Romania’s major rivers snakes right through the county I grew up in, there were always mushrooms to be had.

I’d turned five when my mom decided I was old enough to accompany her. She gave me a sturdy raffia bag, made sure I was wearing my shoes instead of my flip-flops, and off we went.

Geographically speaking, Romania is a beautiful country. We have mountains and meadows, rolling hills, and vast countryside, and once they got around to paving the road, one of the most serpentine roads in the world called the Transfagarasan.

The first few minutes of our being in the forest were spent with my mom giving explicit instructions not to put anything in my mouth and to pick only the mushrooms she deemed edible. Then we got to work.

I don’t know how much time had passed, but I had close to half a raffia bag full of mushrooms when, as we were walking hand in hand, my mother froze and inhaled such a deep breath that I thought her lungs would explode. She didn’t move, she didn’t speak, her eyes were big and bulging, and if not for her still warm hand, you’d have thought her heart had stopped beating in her chest.

I followed her gaze and saw what had her so spooked. Maybe forty feet in front of us was a momma boar with four baby boars coming from the opposite direction. She, too, had stopped, but there was no sign of fear or trepidation in her aggressive stare.  

I knew something was wrong; I just didn’t understand precisely what. The fear rolling off my mother was almost visible, and as she released her bag, I released mine as well. Still holding my hand, she took two steps back, then three, then faster than I would have thought she could move she scooped me up in her arms and ran for all she was worth.

Because of the way I was positioned in her arms, I could see that the boar was not giving chase. It hadn’t even moved, but my mom had no way of knowing, and even if she did, I don’t think she would have stopped.

We went straight home and never went foraging for mushrooms again. My mom would buy bag fulls of mushrooms from the village kids who still went, but as far as her going, it was a hard pass every time I asked if we could go.

I’d never seen my mom that scared before, nor since, and her bulging eyes and contorted face stayed with me for the longest time.

I can speculate what will be with the best of them, but I choose not to. Even keeping silent most of the time, people try to put words in my mouth, and whenever I hear people ascribe certain things to my grandfather and insist that he said them, I just shake my head in befuddled amusement.

Everything he said, he said through me. I was his interpreter. If I don’t remember him having said something, chances are he didn’t say it. That notwithstanding, I know that what is coming upon the world will not be easily digested or readily come to terms with.

Luke 21:25-27, “And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”

My mom was shaken, to be sure, but her heart didn’t fail her from fear and expectation of what that boar could do to her or me. The days are coming when men’s hearts will fail them for the expectation of those things which are coming upon the earth, and it was Jesus who spoke those words.

My intent is not to scare you or make you trepidatious. I know, it’s a good word, trepidatious. My goal is to prepare you insofar as the days to come will not take you by surprise. At least one of the things which will come upon the earth will have enough lag time wherein everyone will know it’s coming. Whether that’s an asteroid, a meteor, or something as yet unforeseen, the thought of it will make men’s hearts stop beating in their chests. And you’re telling me Joel Osteen-level spirituality will be enough to carry people through that?

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.