Just a Moment

I was four years old, proud big sister of a little sister and baby brother. On this particular sunny East Tennessee summer morning, my mother had taken us across the street to visit with Mrs. Woolwine, an elderly neighbor so crippled with arthritis that her husband or son had to carry her into the living room. I remember Mrs. Woolwine's satin bed-jacket. I remember sitting politely on the sofa, looking at son Kyle's fishing trophies -  the sword from a swordfish, the saw from a sawfish. I was particularly taken with that saw, and fell into a reverie of sawing fish working undersea.

Mrs. Woolwine told her husband to be sure and offer us children candy, and he reached for the covered crystal dish with the colorful hard candies, holding it in front of my sister and me so we could each choose. My sister loved greens and yellows, and I, if there was no blue, usually chose reds and oranges.

I remember Mrs. Woolwine and our mother having a conversation, and I remember beginning to feel wiggly. Mrs. Woolwine noticed this, and commented that we children had probably had enough of a visit with an old lady who couldn't do much with them. Our mother demurred, but the wiggles and Mrs. Woolwine won the day. We left with the memory of her smiling eyes and cheery goodbye.

Then it happened. We were back across the street, and I reached for the handle of our screen door, and I saw it: a butterfly, resting on the screen. My mother was still coming up the walk holding my little sister's hand. I put my hand next to the butterfly, moving very gently closer and closer. The butterfly moved onto my hand, and stayed there. I don't know how long it actually remained with me. In my mind now I am still four years old and the butterfly eternally rests on my hand, bestowing blessings and sweetness - much like our crippled neighbor and friend, Mrs. Woolwine. In some ways this butterfly can never leave me. Yet I do also remember that it used my hand as a launching pad, and flew away; and that makes me think, all these years later, of all the works of motherhood and the launchings of my children.

Recently I was speaking with my older son, who is Korean and who arrived in 1976 with his younger sister and brother when the three were 10, 8, and 5 years old. We were talking about the business of respecting elders. My older son carries, still, a huge amount of anger - anger which, according to those who study intercultural adoption, is common among those ejected from their birth cultures into homes and families and societies which are not genetically programmed in the same cultural strains. Genetically programmed? As far as I can tell, yes: there are cultural genetics. Anyway, my son was furious with me for bringing up the topic, and kept insisting that he didn't have to do what old people said, because he wasn't in Korea now. In the heat of our exchange I simply knew I had to stand firm on the bottom-line value of respect for elders. It was not until I got home and sifted through the conversation that I realized he had confused "respect" with "obedience." Ahh, I realized. The ancient Oriental training which does, indeed, merge the concepts of respect and unquestioning, unwavering obedience. I know this from my own upbringing under patriarchal principles, as well - girls and women clean the bathrooms, boys and men do not; wives are chattel and must, once married, "love, honor and OBEY" their husbands. All the guys have to do is "love, honor, and cherish." Unfortunately for many women, that idealistic husband vow too often gets downgraded from three words to one: "use." And so it can also be with that Oriental merging of respect and obedience. Truly, there are some times when it can work, and other times when it invites slavery.

I thought over my son's and my discussion again, and felt certain he'd been able to hear my heart when I'd told him of my mother's teaching me and my siblings respect for elders: how she'd taken us to visit our elderly neighbors, and how she had taught us to always hold the door for older people, those with disabilities, and pregnant ladies, and to always offer them our seats on buses or trains, or in rooms. My son looked at me - I know for that moment he could see me for who I am - just a mom, doing what mothers are supposed to do. For that moment his cloud of anger parted and I could see him considering in his heart whether or not he was also teaching his children properly. Just a moment. It's sometimes almost more than we could dare to hope for, such a moment.