The Gift

It always seems that no matter how prepared I am for an on-time departure, I wind up 5 minutes late to everything. I had a board meeting at 10:00am this morning, and so without good reason, I again found myself rushing everyone out the door, into their car seats, and in Cal's case, out of the car seat, into the bathroom, and then back to the car. When we arrived, I unbuckled the boys, and with as much patience and geniality as I could muster, I herded and shooed them in the general direction of my friend Marie's home. Deaf to my prodding, Cal stopped to examine something in the grass along the sidewalk. As I was just about to implode with impatience, I realized that he had found some dandelions, and my heart softened. (Reference previous entry.) He was not only stopping to smell the "roses" but was reaching down to pick me one. "Cal," I said. "What a sweet boy you are. You picked Mommy a flower!" I instantly began to feel bad for placing my timeliness - in this case, an absurd five minutes - above the things in life that really matter. My life lesson lasted a mere few seconds, however, until Cal said "No, it's not for you. It's for Mrs. Marie." I think I could actually hear the heavens laughing.