Yellow Days

704 run/296 to go

My posts are a little Luke heavy these days. He's highly concentrated life syrup.

I went to pick my boy up from school yesterday. He slipped his hand into mine and we walked together toward the car. He didn't have much to say, which was pretty unusual. About a minute into our quiet walk, he started to cry.

"I had a yellow day."

His teacher starts everyone each day in the green, she will move kids into yellow as they act out in whatever kindergarten way kindergartners do. Luke ended his day in the yellow and it smacked of failure, of wrong (doesn't help that this kid, raised on soccer, needs only to get a whiff of "yellow" and his gut tells him he screwed up big).

Well hell, we all end up in the yellow from time to time, but this yellow day hit hard. I knelt down on the dry packed yard and pulled him to me, not anther step to be taken until I could try and soak up some of the sad, let him know that yellow happens.

He told me,

"She said I had to draw. I told her I didn't want to draw. So I got yellow. Then I drew. Pictures of you."

I watched him unzip his backback, his tears falling unchecked down flushed cheeks. He pulled out a blue school folder, struggled to open it and pull out a thin stack of pulpy lined paper, each with a single figure drawn in shaky lines, fairly identical pictures in different colors. He'd tried to save himself in the midst of yellow by drawing mom in rainbow.

I pulled him into my lap, now wasn't the time for propriety, for waiting to get home or even to the car. Now was the time for kissing away the sad in a scratchy dry grass schoolyard while people looked on, wondering at the unfolding drama.

It is possible to save a life, heal a soul in tiny increments. A friend of mine recently told me that he'd rather not be on the receiving end of grand gestures. I was struck by the clear truth, that it is the un-grand gesture - the myriad versions of kneeling down in the dirt to kiss away tears, that saves lives. The most unceremonious moments in life, the small, genuine efforts are so often the ones full of transcendent grace.

A most loving, heartfelt thanks now, for all those who've saved me bit by bit on my own yellow days. My incremental saviors. You make it all better.

Be well,

Jenny