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I
have received some wonderful gifts from my children over the years.
I have received many different things, necklaces, bracelets, fairies, angels,
boys and girls, made out of macaroni. I have received glazed and fired clay elephants,
rhinos, fairies, angels, boys and girls. Once David found a big heavy "gold" chain
with a gigantic "diamond" encrusted dollar sign pendant in the street near the
high school and it had only been run over a few times. He said that I looked beautiful
in it and he agreed with me that I should only ever wear it in our house because
it was so fancy and valuable that it would be a terrible, terrible shame to lose
it.
Once, while I was in nursing school and Katrina was in kindergarten
she made me a beautiful card. On the front it said, "I no, I no, I no" and on
the inside it said, "I no things has been ruf." I will never get a better card
than that one!
One Mother’s Day I had to work. The children met me in
the driveway that evening and made me close my eyes while they led me into the
backyard for my present. It was quite a journey being dragged as I was in four
just slightly different variations of the same direction and trying hard not to
step on any little bitty feet. Getting through the gate as a cluster was a little
difficult since none of them wanted to let go of me, leaving me to be led (wrongly)
by any of the others. Which just goes to show you that control freaks are born
and not bred. When we finally got through the gate and after Katrina punched David
for dragging me into a hanging cedar branch and I had to briefly open my eyes
to catch David in mid-air as he launched himself at Katrina to defend the honor
of his leadership abilities (he was quite a jumper, that David) and we all settled
down again they led me a few more feet into the yard and then shouted for me to
open my eyes.
I opened my eyes and scanned around quickly trying to see
what they were trying to show me. I couldn’t see anything – just the usual backyard
debris – toys and bikes, lawn chairs piled into a fort or cave or something. It
is a good thing that children think grown-ups are stupid, or I might have inadvertently
hurt their feelings. "Look, Mama! It’s a dinosaur world!" And right there, how
could I have missed it, was a ring of rocks delineating Dinosaur World. There
was Pile of Mud Volcano, the desolate wasteland of Will Ruin the Lawnmower Rock
Desert. There were huts made out of cut grass and there were all kinds of dinosaurs
everywhere. It was amazing. They had obviously gone to a lot of trouble and MORE
SURPRISINGLY had worked together to make it. David and Andy immediately dropped
to their knees to animate the dinosaurs and the show was on! It was one dinosaur
battle after another interrupted only by the girls showing me which dinosaurs
were herbivores and liked to eat dandelions and then demonstrating this. It was
very sweet, a very touching moment you know, which actually turned into a touching
forty-five moments before it was dark enough that I had to insist we all go inside
for supper.
But I wanted to tell you about my best Valentine. Andy, my
youngest, came home from school one day when he was in the fourth grade. He got
all the money that he had been saving up – much of it in coins – and then risked
getting in Big Trouble by walking to the neighborhood drug store. It was only
two blocks away, but he wasn’t supposed to go anywhere after school if I wasn’t
home and he wasn’t allowed to go to the store alone. But he did, with his pockets
jingling. He bought two small heart shaped boxes of chocolate and a gigantic floppy
white toy dog. And I mean it was huge. At least half as big as he was. You know
that he spent what was to him an absolute fortune. Then he walked home and put
the big white doggy on the end of my bed and one box of chocolate on my pillow
and one on Daddy’s pillow.
That doggy stayed on my bed as long as we lived
in that house and is now here in the office with me on the day bed. He is a little
less white than he used to be and I know that over the years he will get grubbier
and grubbier as my future grandchildren enjoy him. And I can imagine that someday
the kids will be clearing out our house and one of the girls will say, "Gross!
Why do you think Mama saved this nasty old thing?" If Andy is there he will know
why Mama saved it and I hope he remembers exactly how he felt choosing it, the
best one in the whole store, paying for it with his very own money, and carrying
it proudly home. My very best Valentine.
© Elizabeth Bussey Sowdal
"The Girl Detective's Theory of
Everything" February
7, 2009 Column
Related Topics: Mothers
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