A Prairie Home Companion from American Public Media: First Person

The Call
by Linda Volmer Auwerda
December 7, 2006

The Call
For Holly Kathleen

The numbers on the page
Stood at attention
To the call of duty pending.

My finger pressed each number
To the pounding heartbeat
That once echoed in the womb
Where she grew.

The sound of each tone reached
Through the receiver of years.
To a voice answering
That it was her life
Given years ago?to be true.

And this truth found
Is consumed with a passion
That longs for reunion.

About the author:
This poem was written about the phone call I made to a woman who I thought might be the adoptive mother to the child I had placed for adoption twenty-five years earlier. It turned out she was the mother and because of the call I have been reunited with my firstborn child. Besides being a birth mom, I am a single mom to three other wonderful people. I work as an educator in the public school system to pay the bills and teach children how to read so they may know the joy of reading. At home outside my kitchen window I watch a variety of birds eat at the feeder while I drink coffee and read the paper. In the summer my vegetable garden and flowers in my yard are a source of enjoyment for me. And in the winter I write poems that I compile with another obsession I have, taking photographs. One of my favorite foods is cow tongue. My mother and I use to eat it together and it's just one of the things I miss about her not being here. Sadly, none of my children will share in this simple pleasure with me. So that family tradition is not getting passed down. The PHC has been a part of my life on Saturday nights since the seventies. My children have shared in this simple pleasure of radio listening with me (they were raised without a TV.) and I have taken my youngest to a show in St. Paul and my middle child to one in SLC. After all those Powdermilk Biscuits, time will tell if they carry on the PHC tradition.