Remembering

"Anne took Davy on her knee and did her best to straighten out this theological tangle also.  She was much better fitted for the task than Marilla, for she remembered her own childhood and had an instinctive understanding of the curious ideas that seven-year-olds sometimes get about matters that are, of course, very plain and simple to grown up people."  

Anne of Avonlea, page 134 

 

When I was growing up, one of my great delights was going to the grocery store with my mom.  We went to a Weis, and the aisles were done in alternating brown and cream stripes.  My sister and I had a game that we found very entertaining that involved not stepping on any of the cream stripes as those contained sharks which would rip off our legs.  We would leap up the aisles at an alarming rate with no regard for other carts or the obvious stress that we cause our mom.  Some aisles didn't have the stripes but rather just random brown blocks, and those really presented a delightful challenge.  I imagine that it was soon after we started this game that our mom started going to the grocery store by herself.

Obviously, our behavior at the store left much to be desired, but that is not the point of that memory.  The point of it is that I remember it.  I remember what it was like to be a child.   I think so many people grow up and quickly forget what those feelings of childhood are like, that desire to imagine and discover, that unabated thirst to learn.  I have other memories of sorrows and angst, of events that brought joy, and of great peace.  As we move through this journey of parenting, I try to keep those memories fresh and to look at things through my children's eyes.  They are young, without the experience of age, and cannot be expected to react in an adult manner to situations.  Part of my job as their mother is to guide without squelching and to help them see truth.

That is my challenge to you, reader.  Remember.