He stood on “his” blue stool, the painted metal one that is
light enough for his two and a half year old self to pick up and carry, to
wherever he thinks he needs to “see what you’re doing”. It goes to the sink for
washing dishes, hands, baby brother, and to the stove top to cook an egg, or
watch me pop corn in a big pot. This day the stool raised him to a good view of
the piano top, laden with the contents of my craft pantry.
After painting the interior, the tedious, slow progressing
process of sorting, organizing and placement of the pantry contents, had by
then been going on for a couple of days. With a few stolen moments as baby
slept his short morning nap, I stood at the piano top sorting beads. The beads
would ultimately find their new home into a beautiful vintage Enid Collins
style bag, bearing a horse image of sparkly sequins. Each of the small
containers of sorted beads would fill it, and the bag would then be placed
front and center of the new craft area to be enjoyed each time I opened its door.
The craft pantry was being vacated and all the supplies relocated to cabinets,
not long ago acquired. I was finally making sense of it all, and that was the reason
for the meticulous organization taking place piano top.
So there he stood on his stool, barely able to contain the
thrill over all that was before him. I gave him some sorting jobs that I knew he
could handle; these beads here, those beads there. He loves to do whatever I am
doing and takes the responsibilities I give him quite seriously.
With just one batch left to sort through, tiny pearls
mingled with small silver and gold beads, I decided to separate the pearls and
add them to a jar already designated for only pearls. His little hand and my
big hand collided in the small shallow lid I had poured them into for easier
access, easier for one hand but our two hands had to take turns. This we each
understood and did without words. We picked through to gather only the silver
and gold beads because they were the lesser, and then put them into my
non-gathering hand cupped small to contain them for pouring into a bottle. One
by one we picked.
All of a sudden, he must have thought to himself, grandma
let me show you how we can get this done a lot faster than this tedious one by
one thing we have going on here. He pinched up as big a batch of unsorted beads
that his little fingers could, and added them to my hand. My response could
have and should have been, better than the startling “no, no, no “, that he
heard. The frustration in my repeat explanation that we were picking only the
silver and gold beads, not the pearls, was not lost on him. As I was telling him,
oh look now, they are all mixed up again, he was saying “sowwy Namma”, which he
sweetly and sincerely repeated a couple more times, with hopes of my assurance
that I was not mad at him. He really has the tenderest heart. I responded with
oh, well we are going to stop now, supposing that he was over the whole bead
sorting thing, and knowing, that I wasn’t up for it anymore either. Clearly, the
activity was all that his little two and half year old attention span could
handle, yet the last thing in the world he wanted to do was have grandma upset
with him.
The frustration was short lived. I don’t remember what we
moved on to but here it is the next day, and I am remembering his heartfelt apologies,
sorry that my own reaction was not to scoop him off his blue stool, squeeze the
stuffin’s out of him, and kiss his sweet face. I doubt that he gave it another
thought, he just moved on to the next, and the last was forgotten. But I know
differently. I know that a little piece of innocence was chipped from him by a
cold chisel, a cold chipping blade that the power of my understanding forgiving
embrace would have melted away like butter. It wasn’t that he was in trouble,
he was not, but he wished for a bit more reassurance in the moment than
frustrated me gave him, and I felt sad about that.
We get these babies, hungry for life, wholly confident in
all we say and do, for they know nothing else. We get them in their pure, genuine,
innocence for so short a time, before little by little life’s experiences, like
a chisel, chip those qualities away.
Later the same day, the three of us, he, baby and I, take to
the bench swing in the front yard. He brushes some debris from the seat, leans
back relaxed, and finishes his apple juice. We listen, like we always do when
we are front yard swinging, and talk about what we hear. We briefly discuss the
weed eater and lawn mower sounds of a neighbor we could see through bushes across
the canal
He decides grandma should make a grass whistle and hops down
to choose a green blade. “It’s too short” I tell him, “we need a longer one”.
He chooses again. We wonder if it will work this time, and happily grin when we
hear that it does. Between each blow of the grass whistle, we look at each
other, smile, and remark at how loud it is. Then one time it makes a funny
flubbery sound. We look at each other and laugh a good belly laugh. I cause the
grass whistle to make the funny sound again, and again and again we look at
each other and crack up ‘till my eyes and cheeks are wet with laughter tears.
Not for the funny sound that to me was only mildly funny once or twice, but to
see and experience his pure joy in so small a thing as an unexpected, then much
anticipated and anxiously awaited, flubbery sound from grandma and her grass
whistle! His eyes lit, his whole body rocked in uninhibited delight, as his
giddy smile revealed two rows of perfect tiny teeth, like lovely strung pearls.
Thinking about it now I remember how I thought then, that his
little pearly white teeth were so perfectly charming. In the recap of our day,
from pearl sorting on his blue stool, to those sweet “pearls” gleaming in his wide
open mouthed laughter, there is no doubt that the latter variety of pearls, are
the only ones I really need to be so concerned
with sorting properly.
God, help me protect his innocence, purity and genuine heart,
even as all around him unstoppable chisels are chipping these from him. May Grandma’s
house be a safe place, where pearls of wisdom tether gentle learning to his
heart, wisdom pearls not lost or stolen from the child him, but kept all the
way to the man he will become.
PJ
Philippians 4:8
