pieces and ponderings

   Surrounded by a sea of parental “no’s,”  like “not now,” maybe later,” “please, stop that,” “I don’t think so,” yesterday I had an opportunity to say, “Yes” to one of my children.  Actually, I think I say “yes” more often than they think I say “yes,” but you know how that goes.  Sometimes I think it does a child and a parent good, when they look at you with big eyes and give a request and you just say, “Yes.”

The big-eyed request came yesterday morning, as my youngest and I sat on our back deck and I watched him eat a plateful of powdered donuts with a couple of chocolate covered ones to boot (dad had said “yes” to the indulgent breakfast item purchase).  He had asked me to join him outside while he ate his breakfast and I had grabbed my coffee and sat in the chair next to his.

It was a cloudy day and a light rain was beginning to fall.  It was just him and me enjoying the beginning of the day and I was about to head into town to help with a project at our church, something I was looking forward to.

We talked and I watched him as some of the powdered sugar stuck to his face and some fell like snowflakes onto his plate.  He asked me when I was leaving and I told him what time I was supposed to go.  “Don’t go,” he said, “stay here with me and we can read our books.”

I don’t think he expected me to abort my plans for the morning and stay there on the back deck so we could read books while a gentle rain fell.  I think he would have been okay if I had gone on.  But there was something about his big gray/green eyes when he  looked at me and made his request.  There was something about the vulnerability of his asking, putting his heart’s desire out there for some time with mom.  I realized that perhaps there was a potential mother/son memory that could be created.  I realized that I had an opportunity to say, “Yes.”

Eleven-year-olds don’t stay eleven very long.  They skip on to twelve and then sixteen and then twenty-two rather quickly.  He may not remember that summer morning on the back deck, with donuts and rain and books to read, and mom in the chair next to his…then again…he just might.