As a mother, I kept a lot of the kids’ things…pictures, notes, cards. Things that are precious to me. My mother kept a paper carnation I made in preschool or kindergarten, made out of kleenex or something that couldn’t possibly hold up, but she had that poor little limp treasure until she died. Most mothers I know understand the simple sentence in the Bible, speaking of Mary remembering events with her son, “But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.”
My son was one of those kids that kept you hopping. You had to keep up with him both physically and mentally from day one. Maybe he was born knowing his time would be short, so he had to live fast. Or he was just a funny kid, testing your patience, making you laugh, making you worry, making you smile and love him.
I found his Me Doll the other day. It was a project at pre-school, making a doll that looked like you. Something only a mother would ooh and ahh over. This one had a lot of personality, says the mother. I had to run an errand after I picked him up from school the day he brought it home. We were walking up some stairs and he spotted a mailbox and dropped the doll in the slot. Come on, mothers, you know how you feel. I gritted my teeth and checked the pickup times, finished my errand and sat to wait for the mailman. Fortunately, it wasn’t too long. He retrieved it for us and that was that.
I always think of that story when I look at the funny Me Doll with his stick out hair, his crooked face, the three dots for the private parts. Oh my. These are the things that make you love being a mother – once you get the doll out of the mailbox. These are the things that a mother ponders in her heart. And smiles…
Confetti Thoughts 