May Day

I was thinking about my mom this morning, as this memory often comes up on May 1st.   Right off the bat, I'll tell you that tomorrow is my birthday, and I've already arranged for a table in the lobby of the building where I work, as well as an extra Post Office Box to accept all the cards, gifts, flowers and other assortment of well wishes and presents from everyone I know.

When I was somewhere in gradeschool our class made May Baskets.  It was some combination of construction paper, ribbons, glue and highly skilled kid hands to make a conical shape ready to hold flowers and hang on a doorknob.   I carried it home on the bus and planned my mission.  I don't remember receiving instructions on how to do this, however my plan was to hang it on the front door, ring the door bell, hide in the bushes, and wait for mom to find her wonderful surprise.

This is a modern day picture of our once, really nice house built by my dad.  (No, the star was not part of our lives, and the bushes I hid in are no longer present, and it sadly lists toward the shabby side. )     

Typically our front door was rarely used, even in those days of real neighborhoods.  We had the garage, breezeway and back door into the kitchen that received the highest traffic activity.  But this day, in my young mind, I was certain that the front door was the one to use - it had a doorbell.  After all, who knocks on a breezeway door and expects someone from way inside the house to hear anything?   I thought through this all very well.  I carefully placed my handmade basket on the knob, rang the bell and ran like crazy down the two steps and around the corner.  Nothing.   I waited.   I crept up the steps again and repeated it all including the ran-like-crazy part.  Nothing again.  I started feeling bad in some way.  I tried again nothing.   Finally, I am sure with a hurt heart and a held back tear, I went inside to find mom to show her what was waiting for her outside.  To this day I only remember her picking it up, but no memory of what she said or what her actions were.   But I do remember my glee in preparing for this, the expectations and the letdown. 

Even though I have long forgiven my mom for her failure, I remember her humanness, her frailties.   When I was five she had a significant and major surgery on her back and was not expected to walk again...but she did.  Her toes were forever numb and her balance never returned, so we all knew to be careful with mom.  In whatever way that her life was at that time in May, only a few years after this trauma in her life, I was at the front door expecting her to just hear and make a beeline to the front door.   40 years later I can understand this.   Somewhere in midlife, there is a miraculous transition from only understanding how the world affects us ... to understanding how we affect the world around us.

We are all recovering from our upbringing.   Thank God.

Comments

[Stephanie]

I'm sad for the little-kid you, waiting with your May basket, so much excitement, and the big letdown. That story reminds me to be more gentle with my kids, with their feelings. I will probably never know how many times I have already dashed their best intentions, but I'll strive not to do it again. I am glad that God gives us that fuzzy lense through which we see the past, though.