Pearls in My Sandwich
in Reflections
Today, I’m taking a little stroll down memory lane. I’m thinking about lunch…in the school cafeteria.
I avoided eating around other kids, because I had a secret to protect: my mother was learning to make…homemade bread. Learning is the key word there.
I don’t know what kind it was. It varied from week to week. But it was thick. Much thicker than normal bread. Thick like a two-by-four, or a popcorn knit sweater. And it was crumbly. Like trying to pick up and chew a loaf of sand.
Worst of all, it was cut all jagged. It didn’t look like bread. It might as well have been sliced with a circular saw. Actually, I think she used a dull artifact of some kind.
The more I think of it, I’m not sure that the texture or taste were the worst parts. I think I might have been able to deal if it had been properly packaged. Say, had it come in a Ziploc. Or in the less expensive, fold-over model baggie.
But Mom wrapped these wiches in whatever she had handy. Brown paper grocery bags cut into little squares. Paper plates tied together with kite string. Wood and chicken wire. Occasionally she wrangled waxed paper around the sandy stuff. And on days like those I almost believed we might find a roll of toilet paper or a box of tissues hiding in the house.
Never happened.
But the longer it takes me to get back to this spot on the lane, the more I cherish the memory I find there.
The embarrassment I cringed over as a child is the courage I hope to emulate today. I love the fact that Mom was learning to make homemade bread—and that she shared it, all sandy, with everyone. I love how she wrapped—and still wraps—her gifts, in whatever she has next to her at the moment.
I love that she’s an artist who hates microwaves and computers, and adores birds. I love her fascination with Sherlock Holmes and picking herbs, and how she paints masterpieces right on the walls. I especially love that she built a tee-pee in the backyard.
Where can you capture that sense of spirit? Where can you find that brand of freedom?
Mine came tied up with kite string. And as I patiently sift through the sand, I’m finding all the pearls.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
This is such a testimony of personal growth. This is a testimony of perspective and understanding. I think that when you come to the day when you can understand a parent outside the context of your own childhood experiences, you’ve arrived at a place of enlightenment. I loved reading this piece and I just felt like I wanted to cry at the end. It was touching. I felt sad and happy at the same time. I wanted you to have Wonderbread, bologna, and chips in Saran wrap, but then we would have never had this lovely story and the opportunity for you to have made this journey of understanding and acceptance! My own grandchildren live a life that is very much like your childhood and I have been fearful of the impact that doing without will have on them as they begin school. Would that they turn out to be like tempered steel as you have, Janine! I feel hopeful. Thanks.
So blessed by your comment! And thankful for how God redeems the stories in our lives, not only for us, but for the healing of others around us. Ecclesiastes 3;11 says, “He has made everything beautiful in its time.” Only a God of miracles could take grit and time and produce a pearl in the end. Praying strings of them for you and your grandbabies!
This story’s “got legs” as they say in show business. It’s going on and on. It’s making me think of how I yearn for perfection in this life; for myself, for those I love. I beg, cajole and pray to God for mercy for even those I don’t know: children in Africa, children who work instead of play Pakistan, normal children incarcerated in mental institutions in Russia, sex slaves, people in hospitals…I wonder why there is “sand” in our lives. I sometimes have trouble seeing the pearls. Your story makes me think that I don’t know everything and that understanding and outcomes are not dependant on my timing, but God’s. I have to give it over…. With love and thanks for a story that keeps on giving….I read it again and again. It’s helping me on my own journey. Thanks,Janine.
@ Kathleen—
Thanks for your comment and for sharing something we all struggle with: the problem of pain and the desire for peace. I know the struggle all too well. But God knows it better. I could never have imagined all the beauty God would bring out of so much grit in my life. I just need to keep holding up the sand… And I look forward to that day when: “‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’ He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’” (Revelation 21:4-5). This is the pearl of great price we eagerly wait for (Matthew 13:45-46)! Waiting with you, Janine