Breathing Children Make Messes...

I’m sitting in our family room.  Currently there are a number of trains, hair bands, game pieces, shoes, a coat, a random piece of ribbon, orange peels and a plastic bag strewn about the room.  This is not necessarily my preferred location for writing.  I am one of those who can’t cook mac and cheese unless the dishes are washed and the counters are cleared.  I am notorious for not being able to sit in someone’s kitchen and have a conversation with them without wiping up under their toaster and around their faucet.  Oh, and wiping around the garbage disposal switch.  That is a definite must.  I realized my disorder when I went on a trip with my friend, Elaine years ago.  We were visiting her sister in Ohio.  Her sister had a beautiful, clean home.  I was standing in the kitchen vigorously moving things around on the counter and scrubbing below them.  You never know if you might find a stray crumb somewhere.  I was wiping down the backsplash and such while having a conversation with my Elaine.  I would glance back at her every now and then to let her know that I was listening.  I’m not sure I was really listening though.  All of a sudden, Elaine quietly shouted, “Noreen, would you stop cleaning!”  Elaine never really shouted so this was just an octave above her normal voice.  I think she was trying to get a point across.  Well she did.  Point taken.  Thanks to Elaine, I now try to put blinders on and really listen to people.  

When we lived in Virginia, one of our neighbors was a middle-aged woman who’s husband had died.  She lived by herself.  Her kids were all grown up and had their own homes and lives.  We shared a wall with her, and I remember thinking that it must drive her crazy when she hears the insanity of our home with three young children running, screaming and tumbling.  Our staircase was attached to her wall.  Let’s just say our kids did not just calmly walk up the stairs or down the stairs.  They mutilated the stairs as they ascended or descended them daily.  How annoying that must have been for her.  But then I realized that she lived by herself.  She had a clean, quiet, lonely house.  She probably would have traded with me any day to have her children and husband back, even if they left their socks on the floor or beat her stairs into submission daily.

Years ago, I was listening to a lady speak about a tragedy that occurred to her family.  Most of her son’s friends were killed in a bus crash, but her son survived.  A little while after this, she was walking though her front room - the room that is always supposed to look nice for company.  She immediately noticed that her son had once again left his socks on the floor by her nice chair - his dirty, smelly socks in her beautiful, pristine room meant for company.  She instantly was perturbed and decided she was going to go get him and tell him to pick up his socks.  As she stormed out of the room, a realization fell over her like a flood.  Her son was alive.  Her son’s friends’ moms did not have dirty socks on their floor today.  They never would again.  She started weeping and turned around.  She now gently lifted the socks up as if they represented her son himself.  She clenched them to her chest and then lifted them and kissed them.  She wept out the words, “Thank you.”

I try to remember these things as I sit in this not pristine living room.  I try to remember these stories when I walk into a kitchen full of dirty dishes and food glued to the counters.  I try to remember this story when I enter the bathroom to find a pile of pee-soaked clothing.  I try to say thank you for the pile of offensive clothing.  I’m not sure I will pick them up and kiss them, but I try to remember.  I’m not always good at remembering, but I want to.  Breathing children make messes.  Non-breathing children do not.