JourneyLeaf: Life a Page at a Time

We were getting ready to head to the Christmas parade. After a few minutes of rummaging in the closet, I thankfully found the Charlie Brown holiday shirt Eli was dying to wear. When I came back into the living room with it, however, he wasn't to be seen.

"Buddy?"

"I can do it!" came a small voice.

"Where are you, Eli?"

"I can fix it!"

I found Eli hiding behind the Christmas tree, wedged in the shadowy corner. I had to coax him out. In his hand was a small ornament that a dear family member made years ago. She patiently used lacemaking techniques to enclose a glass ball with a web of filament and tiny beads. Only now the ornament hung oddly limp, deflated. Inside, the glass ball was shattered.

"We can get a new one!" Eli said, his eyes already red and glistening with tears. "I'm sorry, Mama!" Our tree went up just a few days ago and he remembered our talk about where various ornaments came from, that they are mementos that tell part of our story as a family. The ornament in Eli's hand was a favorite that got tucked near the top of the tree for extra safety. Excited about the evening's fun, he'd been tossing his stuffed bear and knocked it off.

"We can get a new one!" he repeated, somehow managing to go from adamant to pleading in the space of one sentence.

It was so tempting to say yes. I knew he felt terrible and he'd made a heartfelt apology without any prompting. I wanted to sweep up both broken glass and broken feelings in one swoop, agreeing that we'd simply get a new one. But the reality was that we couldn't get a new one. That one-of-a-kind item is irreparably broken.

It was one of those moments where you stand there rubbing your eyes, hoping that when you open them the whole situation will have gone away. I was sleep-deprived. We needed to head out immediately in order to be on time for meeting friends. I liked that ornament very much and felt angry it was broken. Yet at the same time, my heart was melted by my child's emotion.

Getting down on Eli's eye-level, I told him that I accepted his apology. We agreed not to throw toys in the house anymore, especially near the tree. I gave him a long hug. Still, his mood wobbled. He insisted we'd get another ornament just like it or that we'd fix it. After a while, I wanted to beat my head against the wall. Sadly, I don't think I was as patient as I wanted to be, yet I did hang on.

I am a big believer that if kids aren't allowed to handle small disappointments then they will have great difficulty learning to navigate the big ones. We don't let Eli win when we play chance-based board games. We insist on good sportsmanship on the soccer field. We also need him to gradually grow in his understanding that some things and some situations can't be fixed in this life -- objects break beyond repair, relationships end, or people die.

While it is hard to handle impermanence and loss, it is even harder if we are to blame either by accident, negligence, or plain stupidity. Guilt adds a whole other layer. This morning, when we were rested and Eli was in a cheerful mood, we talked about the broken ornament again, about what we can do to make others feel better when we've wronged them but also how to learn from our mistakes, heal ourselves, and move on after realizing we acted wrongly. I dunno. Eli is just turning five so perhaps he'll forget all about it. I hope, though, that he learned something from that broken ornament that made his soul a little stronger.

After Eli was in school, I gently shook the remaining glass shards out of the web of beads. Just looking at it reminded me how messy and confusing parenting is sometimes. At the same time, I felt a wash of gratitude that my little guy is sensitive enough to care about his actions. "The Broken Ornament of 2013" is part of our family's story now too. And, really, the soft web of beadwork is still lovely, so I hung the forever-changed ornament back on our tree. It has a different shape and beauty now as only survivors do.