This weekend, Blue has been working on a school project. The remit was to produce a two-minute presentation on any king or queen, and he chose Mary Queen of Scots. I’m sure the recent visit to Edinburgh helped on that one.
During his research, he found a portrait by an unknown artist, and that phrase intrigued him. We could see the painting and we knew the face portrayed, but the artist was a mystery. Forgotten. Unknown.
Blue told me that it was strange how some people are remembered and some are forgotten. He said some people would probably forget him, wouldn’t they?
Deep maternal intake of breath, cramping like cold. I wanted to throw my arms around him and never let him go. But his thought hadn’t saddened him; it just made him thoughtful. So I said yes, that’s the way it is with most people, isn’t it? There are so many people. But to those we love and to those who love us back, we are so very, very important. Crucial, I said, though I think he didn’t know what the word.
Though he is.
Crucial comes from the Latin root crux, which means cross-shaped and there’s some theological poetry to that. But the meaning comes from the image of a signpost at a fork in the road, the crossing fingers pointing in alternate directions so that the traveller is required to be decisive and choose.
We don’t choose our children, or at least most of us don’t. And we don’t choose to love them any more than we choose to breathe. But we do choose how to love them. Daily, we choose with our words and our questions. With all that we speak aloud and that we only let our hearts mutter. We choose.
Let me choose gentleness.
Let me choose the courage of letting go. Of making room for my children’s thoughts and wonderings and not crowding them out with my own settled reasonings.
Let me choose the cross-shaped love that serves the small ones, the weak ones, the hungry.
Let me choose hope that supports and faith that teaches trust.
Let me choose patience.
Let me choose to love them with my best heart, in weariness as in wonder.
Let me notice my choices and choose well.
Today, there are new leaves outside my window. They are lovely, green and still sticky from their birth. In this rented house with its still unfamiliar garden, we’re not sure what grows were, but we think this plant is wisteria. If it is and if it blooms, I’ll share the purple blossoms with you here. But for now, the spring is still cold and most of the tree is bare, except for one twig that has flattened itself against the glass, its leaves already growing and green. A friend told me recently that everything is metaphor. So with her eyes, I’m watching these new leaves and trying to see clearly.
That isn’t easy.
I’m really not sure how best to read this one. Maybe I’m to be the growing leaves, learning to trust the window’s promise, learning to lean in, let go of my own notions and let growth happen, despite the stickiness.
Or maybe it is better to be the window. Sheltering, offering stability, perspective even.
But then I realize that I’ve got it wrong again. It doesn’t matter if I’d rather be the leaves or the window. It isn’t about me. It’s about love. And surely Love is both. Both growth and support. Risk and trust. In the midst of that balance, Love chooses to fill us all, loving us well beyond time despite our fragilities and our limited perspectives and into Love’s own continuing strength.
