Author: Daniela Ginta Page 91 of 99

Tony is at a Scouts’ camp this weekend. By himself, for the first time. There are some parents there, mostly dads, to supervise, of course, and there are leaders. No mom or dad though. He is excited, I am too. And if he’s worried at all, he doesn’t show and if I am at all, I don’t show it either. I know it’s good for him to go. And I know he’ll have adventures and live to tell the story.

I do believe that children can do a lot more than we give them credit for. And the weekend edition of the local newspaper touched on the very topic on its front page. Kids today don’t do the things their parents did, they don’t get to have the adventures that make the best memories. We’re suffocating them with worrying over everything. I see children my boys’ age not daring to cross a back lane until the parent says it’s OK to do so. I see kids older than my oldest who are walked into the classroom by one of their parents every morning. I see people’s eyes grow large when Sasha mentions carving with a pocket knife – a dull one, but a knife nonetheless. I see kids scared of strangers because they were told that, until proven otherwise, any stranger could be a bad guy. No playing with sticks, no playing with snowballs, no climbing trees, no running too fast, no exploring too far. But shouldn’t fun be safe, though, most parents would say? The problem is we make fun so extremely safe that it becomes little more than a safety protocol. Back lanes are quiet and aside from a few lucky ones, kids don’t run back and forth between houses to play together after school. Over scheduling – keep them busy and they’ll be safe, some say – and fear of everything bad that could possibly happen create isolation and rob children of a childhood that should include at least one episode of “Wow, that was close!” How else will they learn?

I won’t let my boys run in the middle of the road just for kicks and I will remind them to wear their helmets when going for a bike ride. But I won’t flinch either when they’ll say how slippery the top branch of that tall tree was. And you bet I’ll smile a secret smile when they’ll say how awesome and free they felt when they rode their bikes fast and helmet-less that one time and the wind was ruffling their hair with its long wild air fingers. Because I know how good it felt when I rode fast and helmet-less when I was 10. Reckless? Sure. But they’ll know, just like I did too, that doing that all the time would be plain stupid. Kids know, I really think they do. A wise mom once said to me “When my kids wanted to go cliff-jumping, I never said they shouldn’t. Instead, I showed them how to do it safe.”

Tony is back from the camp. He’s tired, dirty and wet but his face has that unique outdoors glow, and he tells us about his weekend. They lit fires on the beach, they jousted, they fought too, with other kids, they fell asleep by midnight and woke up with the sun. A bear cub and his big mama had to be chased away by the grown-ups, there were older kids having parties late at night, there was swearing and some bad words too that he’ll never repeat because he knows that sheltering mom from such details is part of being a big kid. Even as he sits down across the kitchen table talking about adventures and danger and all the fun he had, I swear he’s an inch taller.
And then he talks about freedom. He loved the taste of it, he says. Walking around knowing he’s on his own. This is just the beginning. We both know it, but no one says it out loud. Nestled in my lap, with my arms wrapped around him, Sasha listens to the stories. His turn is a few years ahead. There is no rush, there never will be.
 

I may be biased, but I don’t remember one rainy Easter Sunday during my childhood. But then again, accuracy is not what I’m striving for at the moment. I remember sunny Easter mornings when tree buds were covering the fruit trees like a green veil bearing the promise of sweetness. I remember that my sister and I would always get a new outfit, dress and shoes, for Easter. It was a time of renewal, although no one called it that and it almost sounds pretentious to do so now, but it really felt like it. My favourite dress ever was one with an orange and white plaid pattern, a row of decorative orange buttons, and a white lace collar. My sister had a matching one and although matching outfits were the apple of discord most times, this one was not it because we both loved it a lot.

Early on Easter morning, and I mean early, think 4am or so, we would wake up and walk to church with my mom. I was sleepy, but I knew that sleepiness was to be fought because the day was too important for such trivial issues. I have to admit, the sermon was boring. And long. Truth. When you’re a kid that’s the way it goes, but saying anything was not in the cards. It was one of those feats of strength that kids go through simply because it is expected of them and yes, you could say it was a matter of pride too. It was part of the Easter ritual. I felt like I was earning the Easter breakfast and all the goodies to follow, including the sweets left behind by the Easter bunny. By 6 or 7am the Easter service was done, everyone was greeting everyone with the special resurrection greetings “Hristos a inviat” (Christ is risen) and “Adevarat a inviat” (Truly He is risen) and making their way home wrapped in sleepy morning sunlight. Dyed eggs, radishes and green onions – first of the season, a special kind of cheese which I believe is made only in Transylvania, lamb-derived delicatessen that were eaten only at Easter, the breakfast was a most special one. My grandmother dyed the eggs with onion peels and they turned a beautiful dark amber colour. Many had leaf impressions on them and I always had a slight feeling of regret when it was time to eat them. But then I knew they’ll be back next year.

Now it’s my turn to dye eggs with onion peels. I make leaf impressions on them too by choosing the most exquisite-shaped leaves from the garden, and my boys think they are simply beautiful. I will take my boys to church all dressed up in new shirts and they will most likely say “But Mom, this is going to be so long and boring.” And I agree yet at the same time I tell them that there is meaning behind the words and there is a story in there too. The highlight of the service is the symphony of lit candles and the fact that I let each of them hold a lit candle, and that is treated with utmost importance, if one overlooks the occasional desire to play with the blue-yellow flame while pretending they are torches one can march with. Frowning from the elderly and approving looks from the other kids are also part of the ritual. When my youngest summed up the importance of Easter by saying “It is special because it shows that God survives” I figured he got the gist of it.
The Easter bunny will bring them sweets, and then we’ll have onion peeled-dyed eggs served from a grass-filled small basket, green onions, red radishes and cheese for breakfast. We’ll have an egg-knocking competition to see whose egg is the strongest and we’ll say countless “Hristos a inviat!” and they’ll feel sorry for peeling off the eggs with their beautiful leaf impressions, but by now they know they’ll have them back next year. And the years after.

They said on the news that it might tomorrow. Yet somehow I have the feeling that my boys will remember all of their childhood Easter Sundays as being sunny. Which makes me think that it is not the actual sun that makes Easter day bright, and that memorable sparkle comes from all the other things. Just the way it should be.

Happy Easter!
 

I am. Not mine perhaps, but other people’s. People I love. People who love me. Five years ago my mother passed away. And with her died a whole world. The world I took for granted, that solid ground I was stepping on thinking it will always be there for me to step on, the unconditional love that I finally realized how privileged I had been to have.

I am afraid of death, I am afraid of people dying because I am afraid of the irreversibility death brings with it. After my mom’s sudden death I found myself trying to make sense of what was left, trying to put together the world that fell apart. I let anger take over, I let it stomp its ugly big feet all over my thoughts and then I felt guilty for allowing all of that to happen. I did not allow myself to grieve as much as I felt like grieving because that meant acceptance. And accepting what you cannot change, accepting what hurts, well, that’s not a simple one-step deed.

My mom’s birthday has since become a day of pain. So has the anniversary of her death. And my thoughts are of course running ahead of me here and I think of myself as a mother and of my sons. I want them to celebrate life and not death. I want them to look at it with the acceptance that takes them further down the road not with anger but with joy. Gratefulness for what they had when they had it not anger for what was taken away. So here I am, honouring my mother by looking at her life, not her death, by celebrating the joy she brought to my world and not the pain that I’ve felt since I lost her. And that means that spring bells will return to being just spring flowers and not “the flowers that were in bloom when my mom died”, the blue sky will not make my eyes tear up because of that painful thought that my mom will never see the blue sky again. That means remembering how good it felt when her hand was caressing my hair and how I should just caress my sons’ hair while reading to them because that touch matters more than my letting anger take over the time that could be spent building the memories that will help them smile long after I’m gone.
 

If your first thought was that the title of this post is a quirky metaphor, well, I will have to say it’s not. At the time of this writing a purple hammerhead shark is wearing a white cape sewn with green thread and there is also a lollipop plate on the mantle.

My youngest son is almost five and has yet to step foot into a learning institution. People assume he’s in preschool. He’s not and that creates some eyebrow arching in some. It doesn’t bother me. He wakes up in the morning with a mind as fresh as a sun-kissed summer berry. And every day turns into a creative adventure of some sort. Today he wanted a hoodie for his shark and then he wanted to make a lollipop plate. The hoodie turned into a cape given the minuscule size of the shark, but that was fine.
As for the plate, he really tried to make himself understood, but seeing he could not, he took matters into his own hands. Dragged a chair to the cupboards, grabbed a white plate with blue trim triumphantly declaring “that’s the one I need”, went and got his finger paints and got to work. Ten minutes later he showed me a beautiful round rainbow-like design on a plate, like one of those colourful lollipops most kids look at in candy stores but never really get to have one.

It’s just noon and there is a whole afternoon ahead of us. There are more ideas to sprout and marvel at. The shark will lose its cape in a few days – misplaced, not thrown out – and that’s just fine. Swimming with a cape on makes for lousy hunting anyway. As for the lollipop plate, it’s on the mantle and it will stay there. A reminder that sometimes even the best intentioned people who love us the most might not understand what we mean but it is up to us to carry on with making it happen if we believe the idea is worth it. And come to think of it painting our way through life is as colourful as we make it out to be.
 

The morning was good. I got some early writing done and contemplated snowshoeing with the boys. Well, it so happens that sleeping five-year-olds are too cute to wake up. And quiet, which is always a bonus in the land of permanent bounciness. So the mountains have to take a rain cheque on us although their whipped cream beauty was more alluring than ever. But the boys wanted to see the river. True river rats never betray the banks on the first true warm spring day.

The river it is, I said. Aside from two self-absorbed dogs and their equally absent owners, the banks were serene and motionless, not counting the gentle swaying of the water. Our usual place was drenched in sunlight, and the trees welcomed us with swelling green buds. It smelled of spring.
Playing by the river is always fun. Sand, water and all, but there is something almost mystical about exploring the banks. There’s strange looking bushes and mucky stretches of land the boys call “the quick sands.” Which they are, for all they know. So when the boys took off to explore I let them go far because it feels right to me that they wander freely and if often my approving of such adventures makes people frown, that is yet another reminder that we live in fear and that is one of the things that prevents us from experiencing joy.

The sand was warm and I thought of getting my toes in but then I heard the boys scream bloody murder, one louder than the other and I realized that my little fellow was stuck in the “quick sands”.
I ran like a mother would to save the distressed cub, but slowed down as I saw his brother calm and somewhat amused by the situation but not stressed.
“I can get him out, Mom, it’s OK.” And I knew things were just fine. Fighting sticky mud with laughs and screams and driftwood that was thought to free his little brother’s booted feet, my eldest son handled himself like a big boy would. So they walked out, feet first. Literally. They unstuck the boots afterwards. Socks and pants and sweaters had been sacrificed to the mud gods.
The next three hours were spent filling socks with mud “Look Mom, I’m Big Foot!” and pretending they were gigantic exotic fruit the river brought over. Or dinosaur eggs. Who knew mud-filled socks can be so big. They really are. Building dams, trampling over them with muddy feet, feeling the sparkling water buzz around their ankles, running to warm up on the sand every now and then, all of that was done by the boys in a day’s work.

I got my toes to dance in the sand too and that was perfect. We brought home river shells, a big block of beautiful gnarled driftwood, loads of sand on clothes and a mud-filled sock. Just one, because “The river took the other one, Mom,” my little guy said as we walked to the car. It seemed only natural to him that the river would do that. And why not. You don’t see mud-filled socks every day, even if you’re a river.
Sunshine was still jumping from tree to tree all the way to the river as we left the banks. It’s spring…if you’re a river rat you just know the sweet smell of water warming up and dancing…