The cookie jar was empty.
I noticed this fact as I flew out of the kitchen, car keys in hand, while yelling to my 5 school bound kids, "hurry up, or you're gonna be late for school." A mad rush towards coats, hats and boots ensued and within a blink, everyone was safely buckled into their respective car seats. That is, except for my 18 year old son, Harrison.
Harrison has always done things on his own time with a laid back air. Although it's true, he did arrive 2 weeks early. He was due on December 31st but made his debut on December 19th and was home in time for Christmas of 1998, never one to miss an event or fun.
Oh finally, there he was at the garage door, wearing his navy blue basketball hoodie, grey sweat pants, and favourite cobalt blue basketball socks. I watched as he casually dropped his black backpack and placed his hot beverage cup on the freezer. It was probably filled to the top with creamy and sugared coffee, which he had started to drink now that he was 7 months away from University. With graceful ease, my 6 foot 3 inch tall, son, slipped into a pair of grey Addidas sandals.
With incredulous eyes, I watched as he reached to picked up his backpack, coffee cup and shuffled slowly to the car, despite the fact we were running late. As he opened the passenger side of the front door and was about to put his coffee cup in the holder, with supreme authority I said, "If you think I'm driving you to school wearing sandals in January your crazy."
"Oh moooooom," he said, but he must have recognized the "I'm not kidding" look on my face and after putting his cup in the car holder and dropping his backpack on the front seat, he turned and shuffled back to his shoe cubby, with the same relaxed air, exchanging his sandals for a pair of low rise, red court sneakers. He came back to the van and with a sigh, grabbed his backpack off the front seat and plucked himself down, as only teenagers can do saying, "is this better?"
I gave him an exasperated look, backed the van out of the garage and then commenced a lecture I knew by heart. After all, this was the same child I'd taken to soccer practice, only to discover he had left his soccer cleats at home, or to his violin lesson, when his bow and music were still resting peacefully on his music stand in his bedroom. Countless times over the years, he had arrived home after school to inform me about a band concert in few hours and he just found out his black dress pants didn't fit, or he had a project due the next day and needed crucial material from the craft store. He could have fed a third world family for a year, with all the nicely made lunches he had left in the fridge, after nonchalantly heading off to school.
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| Harrison practicing his violin this past Christmas holiday |
"Harrison, the one thing I regret after all the activities your Dad and I have registered you in, is that we never put you in boy scouts. What is their motto again?" I didn't wait for a reply. "BE PREPARED." I said loudly. "What would happen if it started to snow later today or my car broke down and I couldn't pick you up?" "You can't walk home in sandals."
"Oh mooooom" he said again. "I'm writing a 3 hour English exam today and I wanna be comfortable and besides, if you couldn't pick me up, one of the guys would drive me home." I glanced in the backseat at my newest high schooler, Grace, and asked, "Grace, do the guys wear sandals in the winter?" She laughed and said, "yeah they do." Further annoyed, I said, "Well, if your friends all jumped off the cliff would you do it? Just because others are wearing inappropriate footwear, doesn't mean you have to."
Harrison sat stoically listening to my vent through the 7 long minutes it took to arrive at the high school and once I had pulled over, he jumped out so fast, I hardly had time to yell, "good luck on your exam." Grace just gave me a smile and a shrug as she closed the sliding door. Before heading to the elementary school, I glanced in the rear view mirror at my 3 remaining children and saw they were all sitting peacefully and were unusually quiet. Taking a tip from their lead, I popped my meditative music CD into the player. Deva Premal started to chant, "Om Namah Shivaya," which is a mantra prayer for, divine-love, grace, truth, and blissfulness.
Marinading in that place, I reflected on the recent interaction with my beautiful son. Why do I have to be such a tight fisted, control freak? It's been over 50 years now since the deep scratch of grief and pain were etched in my soul record. I was 5 years old when I happily came home from jumping mud puddles with my best friend Freddy Green. My mom was sitting on the family couch, holding hands with our family physician, Dr. Gerd, totally distraught, crying like a wounded animal, saying "no, no, no!" My dad had been killed on the Hope- Princeton highway, while driving his company truck for Esso Oil. He left my mom alone to raise her four girls.
Since that day, I became a master planner and organizer. I had daily to do lists, 5 and 10 year plans and goals set out on paper. Unconsciously, I had adopted the belief that if every moment of my day was accounted for, nothing bad would ever happen to me or my family. And each time there was a new loss or unplanned disaster in my life, I doubled down to become even more controlled and regimented. Thankfully, as well as much grief in my life, abundant blessings have come too.
In my 20's, I married a kind and loving man, David, and together we had brought 8 shining stars to earth. Each one a wise teacher. After all these years, why couldn't I let my son follow his bliss this morning? I mean what is the worst thing that would have happened if he wore sandals to school?
Sheesh!
A few years ago, we had purchased a new, cherry red, LG washer and dryer set, which sang a jaunty tune when it's final cycle was complete. Harrison, particularly enamored with our new cleaning set, started to say, "LG Mom," when I would ask him how school had gone that day. That was his code word for, "Life's good!"
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| Our LG set...."Life's Good! mom!" says my son Harrison |
Why did my heart not trust that sentiment. Why was I always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I pulled into the elementary school's drop off zone and helped my 7 year old son, William, put his backpack over his bulky winter coat. As I tugged his multi coloured wool toque over his blonde curls, he looked up at me and asked, "Mom, can you get me into Boy Scouts?" Looking at his bright blue eyes, still sparkling with joy and innocence, I realized something had to shift and answered, "we'll see."
Giving one final wave to Will and my 5 year old twin daughters, I drove home, letting everything settle into my chest as I listened to the chant, "Om Shanti,." coming out of my car speakers. At home, I threw the car keys back into the kitchen desk drawer and turned to see the cookie jar on the counter.
Still empty.
For my whole life, I have kept the proverbial cookie jar filled, always prepared for unexpected company. But this morning, I flicked my finger over the groove in the record, and sat on my kitchen window seat, open and empty, letting the day unfold as it would, while watching the changing grey-blue waters, of the lake below our house.
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| The lake is constantly changing but today it appears still and empty.....or is that just me? |
It's late evening now and I'm almost finished typing up my latest story at the kitchen table. I thought it was complete. The little ones are bathed and tucked away for the night, lunches are made, and Harrison walks into the kitchen. "Hey, mom, do you have a minute?" I looked up from my computer and peer over my reading glasses and say, "what's up?" "Well.... it's grad picture day tomorrow and I need a clean white dress shirt and dark tie." he says casually as he opens the cookie jar lid.
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| Our beautiful son Harrison...a wise life teacher |
If you would like to hear Deva's beautiful voice, check out the Youtube video recording from her Dakshina CD.
Thanks for coming to visit today and reading some of my reflections. Raising children opens a window into another world.
Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
Blessings from Hope
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