Tag: childhood

“Are You Good?” {Please Don’t Ask This Question}

Taken from the High Line in New York City.
I took this picture while walking the High Line in New York City.

I volunteer at a hospital once a week, helping out in a clinic. I greet patients and get them signed in, do assorted clerical tasks.

Last week I overheard someone ask a small child, who was waiting with his grandparent, this question:

“Are you a good little boy?”

There was a pause, and then: “Sometimes.”

I was cringing behind the filing cabinet, but what I wanted to do was leap out into the waiting room and scoop up the child and reassure him that yes, of course, he is good, good in the eyes of God, for one thing, and that we shouldn’t label people as “good” or “bad,” even if we’re tempted to classify individual actions as such. That we are not just one quality or another and that on any given day we will do things some people will consider proper and others will question. That when we mess up we get to try again, and we’re not—hopefully—branded as “good” or “bad” for a lifetime because of how we acted in our younger days. Or the mistake we made last week.

I’m not really comfortable with that kind of language, “good in the eyes of God,” but it was what came to my mind, and heart, as this precious, tender, toddler tried to decide if he was “good” or “bad” because some stranger had the gall to ask him such a loaded and unfair question.

He’s a kid, for crying out loud. Why not ask him if he plays with Paw Patrol (my great nephew’s current favorite), or what he likes to eat for breakfast? Inquiring about his age would work, or if he has brothers and sisters. But not, for the love of all that is holy, “Are you good?”

Stealing My Neighbor’s Daffodils

IMG_3425When I was about five, my family moved from one subdivision to another in my hometown of Jackson, Mississippi. Soon after we arrived, a woman came from next door to welcome us to the neighborhood. Mother told me to go out back and play while they visited. So I did. After roaming around for a bit with my Labrador sidekick, Sloopy, I found the longest row of daffodils, all yellow and good smelling, lining one side of the yard. I picked a bunch of them, delighting in my discovery, and took them in to Mother, my chubby fingers wrapped around the stems.

“Here,” I said, offering up my bounty. “These are for you.”

“Oh no,” said my mother. “Those don’t belong to us. You shouldn’t have done that.”

Somehow she knew what I didn’t, that the flowers bloomed on the property next to ours, owned by the nice woman sitting on the couch. She was lovely about it, this new friend, but my mother was not amused.

The neighbor, Mrs. Wise, and I laughed about it when I was older, with her telling me I could pick those flowers anytime, that she just wanted people to enjoy them.

The last time I saw her she brought a card to my father in the hospital after he collapsed in a restaurant while eating lunch. Once again Mrs. Wise and I spoke of the daffodils, although she was well into her eighties then and said she had no memory of my indiscretion. Why would she?

Why do I? Because of the shame of it, perhaps, one of those early scoldings we think we didn’t deserve. An early embarrassment. Or maybe it was my first meaningful encounter with a daffodil.

“But I wouldn’t have minded if you picked those flowers whenever you wanted,” she said as we visited in the lobby of Baptist Hospital on North State Street.

“This is for Earl,” she continued, handing me the card. “Get well soon,” it read.

Daddy died the next day, Mrs. Wise several years later.

Every spring when I pick daffodils in my own yard in Tennessee, I think of them both, a neighbor and a father who made lasting impressions on me.

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑