First published in the Tri Town Transcript, Jan 4, 2017
By Esther C. Baird
You know that last week of school before the holidays. The kids have class parties every other hour and subsist mostly on frosted cookies and marshmallows. They are overly tired and hyper, which only serves to highlight that their parents are so, so much worse. By the final day of school I had reached heights of frantic holiday freakout where only angels dared to fly.
And trust me, that last day, I was no angel.
I was sure that the Latin teacher’s gift had accidentally been given to the guitar teacher and I was suddenly panicked that the gift for our youngest daughter’s class-sponsored child was inappropriate. I had one mom talking fifty miles a minute about a gift to the robotics coach, while another mom was discussing a caroling event. Meanwhile, our two girls were heading down the hallway with looks that seemed expectant of snacks . . . of which I had none.
But my youngest surprised me and instead of asking for a snack, offered me something in her outstretched hand. “Mommy, we made you ornaments today in class!“
I looked down and saw a clear ornament full of fake snow, made to look like a little spherical Santa Claus. It was cute, but I couldn’t focus. So I took it and continued to sort out whatever was happening with the caroling robots . . . was that right?? Did robots sing?
“And Mommy, it’s glass. It’s real glass!” My daughter chimed.
Her friend piped up, “Yep! You can’t drop it!“
I held up the ornament, trying to pay attention. “Oh, Sweetie, there is NO way that a fourth-grade class would use real glass!! I’m sure it just looks like glass.“
I tapped it with my fingernail. It sounded dull, like a composite material, not glass.
I finished with the robot mom, while the caroling mom drifted away, leaving my friend and I standing there holding our ornaments.
“Do you think it’s glass?” I asked her, tapping again.
She smiled at her daughter. “Who knows, but regardless, it’s lovely, isn’t it?“
She beamed down at her daughter, understanding that it didn’t really matter what the ornament was made of, but who had made it.
I had not, however, internalized such a meta-narrative.
“My guess is that it’s one of those shatterproof balls that looks like glass but is actually . . .” as I spoke, still tapping, the ornament shot out of my hand, into the air and down to the floor. There was the resounding sound of glass shattering into a thousand shards of parental disaster.
Time stopped. All the moms who had been swirling and chirping and swishing suddenly froze. I stared. I couldn’t undo it. I couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t think straight except I knew I just wanted to fix the whole horrible, overly busy, exhausting mess that I felt the broken ornament represented. Then time started up again. My girlfriend whisked my daughter outside, where she had an extra pink frosted donut in her car (because that’s the kind of magical mother she is). The teacher, who had been notified, said that she had extra ornaments and my daughter could make a new one (but perhaps this time I could just not touch it, or go near it). The custodian appeared with a broom and we managed to sweep up the the pieces of my parenting fail.
I hugged my daughter and apologized over and over. I explained I had never meant to drop it. But of course I had not been careful either.
That was the root of it all . . . not being careful. Not being careful to say ‘no’ to some things, to do less and enjoy more. Not being careful to listen and know when something was real glass and not just pretend.
So, though I’m not a big New Year’s resolution person, this year I’d like to be careful with the time spent. If the Latin teacher gets the wrong gift, I’d like to laugh. If I show up to the caroling event dressed like a robot, I’d like to know it doesn’t matter. And when I’m handed an ornament, or time with those I love, I’d like to hold it carefully so that it won’t shatter, but instead can sparkle and twinkle in the lights of 2017.