Scribblemom.com
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Gallery
  • scribble mom.com

Last Day

10/4/2014

2 Comments

 

There is always a Last Day.  A Last Day of summer.  A Last Day of school.

A Last Day of Childhood.

This year, it happened in our family again.   A Last Day of Childhood.

On her Last Day of childhood, we could have done something remarkable.
On her Last Day of Childhood, we should have been packing for college.  She was moving out the next day.  On her Last Day of Childhood, my heart stretched and ached every time I looked at her. I saw a young woman, on the brink of adulthood and I almost couldn’t stop the tears.

She wasn’t quite ready.  

“I can’t go, Mum.  Not until I find that box!”

We sat in her room, clutter and cartons spilling everywhere, looking for a smallish wooden box.

“I am not leaving until I find it.”  

It had been lost through the years and the debris of childhood, packed in the attic and almost forgotten.  But not quite.  We dug and searched every crate.  Ice skates, crazy art projects from ninth grade, striped socks, notebooks filled with then-important thoughts and grade school dreams.

The box was from her grandfather.  He had died when she was just nine.  That was when she packed up all her dearest treasures of life, and put them in that box.  There they sat, waiting for this day, till she was all grown up, and ready to say goodbye.

She found it.  

With glee, she opened the tarnished brass latch of the little wooden box, and all of the joys of her childhood tumbled out around us.  She laughed, and I saw her as she was at age seven, freckled faced and toothy.  Grinning, hopping around in overalls with bare feet, innocent and happy.

The precious box contained:  An agate.  An eraser.  A tiny bowl she had sculpted from rice (hidden away in a pocket during supper) and shellacked with nail polish.  A hair from her dog that she had dipped in Borax to grow crystals on.  A wooden nickel.  And an acorn cap.

That’s it.  Nothing, really.  But treasures.  Treasures of a childhood filled with love.  A relationship with a grandfather who adored her and teased her relentlessly.  She had dumped a bucket of water on his head for his Christmas present one year.  The following Easter, he had cracked a raw egg on her head.  She had decorated it to trick him, but the joke backfired.  All of the moments of wonder of nine years of childhood danced out of that box.  It was filled with love, really.

She did leave the next day.  As she walked away from me, I held back the tears, and thought that nine years wasn’t enough.  Eighteen years weren’t enough.  But if, someday, I can look back with joy at an acorn cap, and feel my heart overflow with love, maybe, just maybe, I can face today.  I could pack it all in the box of my heart, and move on.  

To the First Day of Adulthood… 

2 Comments
Patti Funni
10/4/2014 09:25:05 am

Oh what a beautiful post, brings so many memories to my heart. I can see and feel all of the sweetness of that 9 year old and of her love for her Grampa. Love does go on forever

Reply
Janie link
10/4/2014 10:25:35 am

This was written so tenderly. This just tugs at ones heart. You have given her the roots as she truly knew the last thing she needed before she left was to get grounded somehow with her grandpa. That is evidence you have taught her well

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Picture

    Categories

    All
    Alzheimer's
    Art
    Birds
    Camping
    Cartoon
    Christmas
    Comic Books
    Craft
    Down Syndrome
    Family
    Flowers
    Food
    Gratitude
    Health
    Hope
    Joy
    Kids
    Kindness
    Love
    Mom
    Mud
    Oil
    Or Lack Of It
    Paint
    Peace
    Pets
    Photography
    PTSD
    School
    Sky
    Snow
    Spring
    Sunday Bouquet
    Sunrise
    Transplant
    Veterans
    Winter
    Work

    RSS Feed

    Love
    Joy
    Peace

    Found in the 
    small things...

    Picture

    Archives

    January 2022
    December 2021
    July 2021
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014

All content  © michellemahnke.com  2021