Thursday, July 18, 2013

                                                                                                            July 18, 2011
                    
Oliver Tolliver July 18, 2013
                     
Dear Jane,
     Just got back from taking Addy and Ollie to our neighborhood gas station/convenience store. Addy has been asking all morning if we could "please go pick a treat?" After meandering through the aisles of carbohydrates and calories, decisions were made and then made again. We finally scooched our way up to the cashier only to be told that our purchases had already been paid for by a stranger. Oh Jane. How utterly good people truly are.
     Have had a few rough days over here. Addy has been feeling crummy and crabby. And, well, I've just felt crabby. Overwhelmed with life and underwhelmed with cancer and the wake that it's left in our pathway that heretofore, was relatively ripple free. Of course, that's easier to identify now in my current life state. What felt like rough waters Six months ago, would feel like smooth sailing today. Ah, blessed perspective. How she doth force me to ultimately love her...Pain and all.
     Aside from feeling like a crabapple lately, I've also struggled with a great sense of sorrow for all of my boys. But, this week, particularly my little toe headed Oliver Tolliver. Came around the corner this morning to see him on his tippy toes with a large wooden spoon in hand. Doing a little jig in front of our kitchen sink. I asked: "Oliver, what are you up to?" to which he replied: "I'm not big enough to reach the water spout (faucet) but, I needed to wash the yogurt off my hands." Gulp. In the past, I would have been the sink turner on-er. I would have been Ollie's wooden spoon. But, he's learned as of late, that his moms arms and hands are weighted and brimming.
     As I watched Ollie tip-toe dance his way through his new found hand washing system, my heart sank and my initial inclination was to weep and raise clenched fists to the sky. However, for some reason still unbeknownst to me, I did neither. I simply sat down right in the middle of my kitchen floor...The hardwood warm from the kiss of the mid morning sun. I sat and marveled at how very resilient the human spirit is. About how proficient and resourceful we become when we stop asking "how?" and replace it with "now." Can't reach the kitchen faucet? Seven year old son diagnosed with cancer? Okay, what now? What's another way, a different route, a previously uncharted thought,or perhaps, a separate road altogether? Those Four year olds. They hold some astonishing answers even in the tippiness of their toes.

               "They say the world has
                become too complex for
                simple answers. I say...
                they are wrong."
                             -Ronald Reagan

                   Out of the toes of babes,
                               -Sara

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