The Miracle

At 4:00 a.m. Sunday morning, my bedroom door opened.  Not the bedroom door right across the hall from my little boy's bedroom door, but the other one.  My little boy came into my room and told me he'd had a nightmare.

I hugged him to me for a few minutes, then asked, "Was your nightmare that a little boy had left a green crayon in his pocket when he put his jeans in the laundry?"

He looked up at me.  "No."

"Oh," I said.  "That's the nightmare I'm living right now."  Green crayon had been smeared across every piece of my brand new cream towel set, and had left a big blob of Oobleck on the expensive bath mat.

He continued to cling to me.  I rubbed and patted his back some.

"Why did you go all the way around the house when you could have just crossed the hall?" I asked him.

"I didn't want to wake Daddy."

I didn't comment on his lack of hesitation in waking me. That's what moms are for, and a mom is what I have always wanted to be.

I could have asked him to tell me about his nightmare, but I was afraid we would both wake up too much.  I'm an early riser, but 4:00 a.m. on a Sunday is a bit much.  Especially on a Sunday morning when I experienced a devastating laundry disaster at 11:00 the night before.

Then, he asked me if I would sing him his favorite hymn.  I've been singing this hymn to him all of his life.  I remember well the first time I did so, when he was just a few months old.  He was lying on the couch, probably following a feeding or a diaper change, and I had sung the lilting, comforting hymn to him, watching his eyes grow round in wonder as I did so.  My husband, who doesn't think I sing well at all (compared to himself, and it's true), graciously said, "He thinks you're miraculous."

It may or may not be miraculous for a mother to sing a certain hymn to her child throughout his childhood, but hearing that certainly did not discourage me from continuing.

One Sunday when this child was about four years old, his hymn was selected as the opening song in church.  As the introduction was played, I turned and watched him to see recognition spark in him.  And it did.  He turned his head sharply toward me, and we smiled at each other across various siblings of his who were sitting between us.

As I've said before, I'm not much of a singer, though I wish I were, and a request to sing a hymn at 4:00 a.m. is a temptation to decline, but I knew I could not deny this child that favor, and I told myself that I would only sing the first verse.

So, I did.  My son continued to cling to me, and I continued to pat and rub his back.  I paused after the first verse, then launched into the second.  When I was done, he was ready to face his demons and go back to bed.

Later that day, as the sacrament portion of our church meeting was starting, this little boy, sitting on the other side of his sister, caught my attention.  He whispered, "I'm sorry I left a crayon in my pocket."

I smiled at him.  Here was the miracle.

This child, if caught doing something wrong, struggles mightily with admitting it.  He has trouble not attaching himself to things he sees which are not his but that he likes.  He has trouble being where he is supposed to be and doing what he is supposed to do.  He is often in more trouble for lying than for whatever the original offense was that he is lying about.

I whispered back words of forgiveness, and we both took the sacrament.

Something Fishy

I opened the newspaper the other day and saw the obituary of one of my former classmates.  I didn't recognize him--not because decades have passed, but because, in the photo, he was standing back, with a hat on, behind a large fish.  I did recognize his name, though, and felt bad to learn his life had been short.

 

The next day, I opened the newspaper to find two obituaries, side by side, of my classmate and another man, both standing back, with hats on, behind large fish.  The images of both the men and of the fish were almost identical.  I had never seen anything like that before in my life!  And I started to wonder--maybe these are the obituaries for fish?

 

I have seen people pictured with their beloved dogs.  One time, an obit picture showed a man holding a black hen.  It had not occurred to me at the time that the hen may also have been dead, and its loved ones in need of notification.

 

Are the pets dying along with their masters, like some kind of ancient Egyptian ritual?

 

Obviously, the fish pictured have probably been dead for some time, by now.

 

I wonder if my obituary picture should include all of the insects and spiders I've killed in my lifetime.  To be honest, it has never occurred to me before now to save them, photograph them, or even give them another thought.  But maybe I'm really missing out on something here.  Imagine if everyone's obituary showed the impact that person's life had had on the animal world.  Like some kind of carbon footprint, on display as a testimony of the lethality of their life to other lives.

 

We may be on to something.

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March First

Every year, I look forward to March first.

Winter is my least favorite season, and spring is my favorite, so I can't help it.

Through the long, bleak winter weeks, I count down.  I give winter one hundred days, no more.  No matter when I start counting wintery days, when I get to March first, I feel I'm running the last lap, on home stretch, nearly to the finish line.

Yes, it still snows here in March, and snow is an ordeal, but snow in March is not likely to stick around long.  I can handle it.  We also see crocuses and violets struggling free from the earth and hear birds singing again.  It's a mixed bag, I admit, but at least it's mixed.

The worst winter weeks for me are when it snows heavily and often, when the temperature never even climbs up to freezing for days (or weeks) on end, or when some other trial presents itself.  Some weeks that I shudder to remember featured all three.

Even though we did have a couple of frozen wasteland weeks early on this year--as soon as December hit, actually, I am happy to report that this winter turned out to be not bad at all.  It's been raining.  Yes, raining.  In February.  Not something I ever remembering growing up with.  But who am I to complain?  I've never shoveled rain yet.  It's been weeks since I had to apply gargantuan force to ice sheets on my windshield in order to drive to the gym or shovel any amount of snow that tired my back.  Weeks!

Honestly, I confess that I thought I was due an easy winter--after the last one.  It snowed so much one night last year that it seemed I'd walked out onto another planet.  Everything was eerily still.  It was as if an ocean of white had come right up to my door, and nothing but white lay between me and the horizon.  The snow was over a foot tall everywhere, and it was still snowing.

Clearly, I would get a whole workout before I could even think of driving to the gym.  I'd grabbed the shovel and worked until my arms and legs were quaking, and I'd barely made it down the sidewalk.  Having seen my neighbor lying gray and still across his doorstep a couple of months before that, I just couldn't stop shoveling at the property line.  By the time I'd reached his driveway, two-and-a-half hours had passed.  Not only would there be no gym time, it was looking like I would be late for work.

I was a soaking wet mess by then--three parts snow, four parts sweat, and five parts tears.

I burst into the house with what felt like my last breath and apologized for waking my husband.  "I need your help, though," I sobbed at him.  I had not even begun to clear off the cars.  The snow on the cars reached up to heaven right along with my prayers, and I just didn't see how I could do anymore.

He stumbled out, my hero, to rescue me, and I pulled myself together to shower and dress.  Though he worked hard, too, I still got stuck in the driveway, yet another ordeal before getting to work.

And it kept snowing.  My husband shoveled another huge mess off the sidewalks that afternoon.  He got stuck going up the hill to take the kids to school.  Yes, in my city, we still have school, no matter how disastrous the snowfall.  The teachers are not going to give up the snow day that falls on Memorial Day weekend for anything.  He spent the day battling car problems with the "new" van we had just bought, and later had to abandon it (temporarily) in a left turn lane in the middle of the street when it died again.

That was the situation I came home to.  I found out about it after getting stuck in the driveway again, this time, going in.

It was the biggest natural disaster I had ever seen with my own eyes.

That snowstorm and its aftermath resulted in us having to do home repairs on the front of our house.  I  developed tendonitis from all that shoveling and the shoveling I had had to do later on that week.

And, thinking back, that was only the fourth worst winter of my life.

So, now you can see why I thought an easy winter would be nice.  And, fortunately, for me, at least, my prayers were answered.

Last year, I'd decided that there were way too many people praying for "moisture."  And I hope and guess they learned their lesson.

Now that I've thoroughly depressed all of us, let me get back to talking about March.

I don't only love spring because it's not winter.  Although, I admit, that is a lot of it.

I love the whole renewal thing.  Flowers, babies, rebirth, growth, warmth, sun, light, resurrection, lambs and bunnies, blue and green everywhere you look.  I love the message from nature that we get a do-over, because it seems that most all of us usually need one.  Here's a new year: try again. 

March is when I first agreed to be someone's wife.

March is when I got married.

March is when my long-lost friend reclaimed me.

March is when I once shrugged off my old life and started my life over, for reals.

March is when my grandparents got married.  And when my other grandparents got married.  So, it seems to me to have engendered my very beginnings.  

March is when I get out my spring green dress and try to wear it.  It's when I put away my brown, bulky sweaters that look so comforting in November but that I cannot stand to wear one more time by then.

March is often Easter. 

March is hope.  Faith.  Life.

Welcome, March.  Thank you for coming back.

Welcome, life.