We all envy, or tend to covet,
that which we are unaware and don’t know a whole heck of a lot about.
For me, I’ll admit, it
can be a daily occurrence.
I smile outwardly at
the guy who hops out of his car in the Harris Teeter parking lot, his hands
gripping the torn piece of notebook paper like it was a winning lottery ticket
on a windy day. I nod my head as he looks
up in intense concentration from trying to memorize his wife’s grocery list,
grabs his cart and heads inside.
I think how lucky his
wife must be. How my own husband hasn’t
set foot inside a grocery store in the ten years we lived here except on the 17th
of October, 2010 for a gallon of fat free milk and a loaf of Wonder Bread. I remember the exact day three years later
because of the texts, photos and subsequent Facebook posting from friends and
family documenting his epic maiden voyage.
I also remember because we ate our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
for a week on rye bread downed with a hearty glass of buttermilk.
I sigh in frustration as
my husband…again…leaves his plate exactly three inches from the two
contraptions that were built to clean them.
You know, the dishwasher and the kitchen sink. Not to mention, his half glass of milk is
left sweating on the island, his balled up napkin is on the floor and he’s now
having fun swimming with the girls while I mop, bleach, bake, sterilize,
sanitize and sweep.
I feel envious; I do, of
all those women out there whose significant others lend a helping hand with the
day-to- day doldrums. I know they are
out there. I’ve seen them with me own
eyes. The ones who help clean up after birthday
parties, plan cookouts and dish out food they’ve cooked all day with a smile on
their faces.
I feel jealous and bad
too, most days, about just being a mom.
Surely, there are women out there that can get their kids to school on
time, handle deadlines and PTA meetings and remember to bring two dozen water bottles
and three bags of pretzels for snack at school.
I know these moms have never been yelled at by their own kids, never told
they had “ruined their lives,” or heard a request for adoption with a family of
traveling trapeze artists because at least, “their life turn out to be somewhat
interesting and a whole lot more fun.”
Yes, I want to be one of these women who can do it all and never feel like
a failure.
But then I think:
The man at the grocery
store’s wife is terribly sick. He has no
idea how to help her get better or if she ever will get better. All he knows is this is what he can do right
now. In this moment. He can make her
something she probably won’t be able to keep down but it’s the only thing he
can think to do. To show her how much he
cares about her, to nourish her, to hang on.
While my husband
ignores his plate by the sink and plays in the pool with his daughters, there
is a single mom down the street. She’s
worked all day, already cried silently in her car before pick-up, wondering how
she is going to do this all by herself. She
washes dishes as her kids play without her in the backyard, already stressing
on unanswered work e-mails, backed up laundry and mounting bills. She knows it’s almost time to call them in for
bed, another day gone- just like that.
And as I go to bed,
feeling defeated, feeling like a failure as a mom, there is a women not too far
from me who turns in for the night wishing her child was still with her. Even if it were just to tell her she was
“ruining his life” because at least she could hold him and hug him-breathe in
the smell of him- and tell him she didn’t carry about any of that- never
did. She only loved him with all and
every molecule of her being.
Yes, envy is ignorance
just as the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.
But as Walt Whitman
believed, “a leaf of grass is no less than the journey- work of the
stars.”
It takes just one,
single blade of grass- not an acre, forest, slab or crate- to see the magic
which is humanity.
We shouldn’t keep count
of how much or how little we have.
We should only reflect
and be grateful for each others’ blessings
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