I know. It’s probably not a gecko. But I couldn’t think of a cute alliterative name to go with lizard. Larry was just too obvious. Gordon lives on my front porch and eats ants. In exchange for room and board he patiently poses for my camera.

Tempus fugit, carpe diem and all that. Last day of kindergarten, pass the kleenex.  This post was originally published last year but seems especially appropriate today as I sit at my desk trying to figure out how it all got away from me so fast.  Neither sweet nor bitter stays on the tongue for very long.  Tempus fugit indeed.

* * *

These days, life seems to click past from weekend to weekend, holiday to holiday, school year to school year.  It is as though I am seeing my life through a View-Master.  With the click of the thumb, one season disappears from view and is replaced with another.  And then another, and another.

Soon the school year will be over and we’ll look forward to lazy summer days, swimming and popsicles.  Click.  Then Father’s Day.  Click. Then Independence Day. Click. And then Labor Day.  Click. And then back to school again.

I was almost 39 when we married and AD was 42.  We were both on the dark side of 40 when Sean came along.  And perhaps because we are older or because we came to parenthood in the 11^th hour, time is the filter which sifts the meaning out of the mundane for us.  Time is our most precious and finite resource and informs our every thought.

The other day I watched a young woman in the grocery store pushing a cart with her baby in the seat.  I watched her stop the cart and lean in to rub noses with her baby and coo sweet round syllables to her.  I estimated her to be about 25 and I thought about how if she lives to be 80, she will get 55 years with her baby.  And I was a little envious.

If I’m lucky enough to live to be 80, I will get 36 years with my child.  I am so grateful that I ever got to be a mom. I am grateful for every single day, even the days when I cry and complain about how hard it is because I know that no matter how many years I get, in the closing moments of life as I am ushered off  into the shadow of death, if I wish for anything at all, it will be more time.

This right-now season that fills the frame of the View-Master, is especially vibrant and crisp and golden.  My eyes want to linger here, to stay just a little bit longer…

Click.

Last week on the way home from school I asked Sean what he did in school that day.

“Nothing,” he said.

“Oh really? Not anything? You just sat at your desk with your hands folded for four hours?  I’m going to ask for my money back if they’re not going to teach you anything.”

This caused him to sniff in amusement.

“We had centers today.”

It was a crumb, but I take what I can get.

“Centers? Really? Reading?”

“No. Shopping.”

“Shopping Centers!” I laughed at my own joke.

“What did you buy?”

“Well!” he huffed, “I only had 75 pennies so I bought an electric pencil.”

“You mean a mechanical pencil?” I said rather than asked, “Good choice. Cool.”

“No, not cool.  I wanted to buy the bunny purse for you but it was like 100 pennies and then Karys bought it!” he whined with indignation.   “I didn’t have enough money!”

That was interesting because the last time we were at the school for a class party, AD noted that Sean had a huge stash of pennies in his cubbie while the other kids only had a few coins each. AD later suggested to me that Sean should set up a little business of making secured loans to the other children at a reasonable rate of interest. No, not usury. It sounds so ugly when you say it like that. Think of it as a math lesson in the power of compounding interest.

“A bunny purse?! You were going to buy me a bunny purse?!”  The very thought delighted and pierced my heart at the same time.

“Yes, it had a bunny on it with a nose and it was furry and pink on the outside and purpledy-pink on the inside and it had a nice zipper and a strap for your head.”  I think he meant a strap for my shoulder.  I tried not to laugh at the mental image of a bunny head purse.

“But Karys bought it!  I didn’t have enough money!”  The injustice caused his voice to leap an octave.

I looked in the rear view mirror to see his eyes beginning to swell with tears.  Didn’t have enough money. This thought stirred up ancient poor girl dust that never really settles out, but remains suspended in the soul for a lifetime.

In my mind, I could see him eyeing the bunny purse, turning it over and over in his hand, imagining how he would present it to me and how delighted I would be.  I imagined him counting on his fingers, working out the math. And then the disappointment, how it would fall from the ceiling and settle heavy over him, rounding his shoulders. I felt in my own heart the disbelief he felt when he realized the bunny purse was out of reach and worse, it was going home with someone else.  I know there is a good and powerful life lesson tucked away in the experience, yet it pains me all the same.

We drove another mile or so, neither of us saying a word.

“Well,” I finally said, “I have to tell you – I love that you would spend your money on me. That’s a very selfless big boy thing to do, and just knowing that?  That is a wonderful gift that would make any mom happy.”

This did not go far in salving his wound.

And you know what?” I continued, “There will always be people who will get stuff and have stuff that you want.  That’s just the way it is.”

Just recently I had been to someone’s gorgeous and fully accessorized home and felt a tinge of what he was feeling, familiar and bitter.

He sighed. Not what he wanted to hear. He wanted to hear how terrible Karys was for buying the purse out from under him.  That it was unfair.  That’s what I would want to hear.

But I didn’t say that.  I told him that even moms and dads feel that way sometimes.  I wanted him to know that, to be honest with him about that.

“But,” I said, “I find that if I can be grateful for what I have rather than disappointed over what I have not, that it makes it a little better.  A little.”

That’s a hard one to learn, and a lesson to be learned over and over. So I quit teaching and let it go.

When we got home, he disappeared upstairs, I assumed to contemplate upon the unfairness of life.

20 minutes later, he appeared at my desk. The cloud of gloom had lifted.

“Close your eyes and hold out your hands,” he said cheerfully.

When I opened my eyes, I was holding a bunny purse made out of construction paper, tape and staples.  My name was monogrammed on the front in purple crayon.

When life steals your bunny purse, make one out of construction paper.

I told him I couldn’t imagine any bunny purse anywhere nicer than this one.

And I meant it.

On Saturday, my friend Gigi hosted a Mother’s Day luncheon for her church.  She invited several of us to speak on different aspects of motherhood. I spoke on infertility and late-in-life motherhood. Others spoke on looking forward to motherhood, adoptive motherhood, step-motherhood, grand-motherhood, military motherhood and another gal spoke on what it’s like being a mother to a special needs child.

One lady lost her son in a tragically freak car accident when he was 32 and spoke about what a joy he was to her for the time she had him.  Each story was inspiring and sharpened my perspective and deepened my appreciation for how similar and yet how different everyone’s experience at this mothering gig can be.

The picture has nothing really to do with Mother’s Day other than to record that Sean spent the entire weekend running around Gigi’s farm playing with her grandchildren, covered in dirt and totally unaware that he had a mother.

As we drove home, Sean handed me a Wal-Mart bag from the back seat and wished me a happy Mother’s Day.  Inside was a card and a candle.  I suspect at some point I will own the largest collection of Wal-Mart candles in the state of Texas. I just pray that my collection will grow beyond 32.

I wasn’t one of those moms who cried the day she sent her kid off to kindergarten. I was excited about the adventure that I knew was ahead for Sean.  I expected joy and it has been delivered in abundance.

But now that the school year is about to come to an end, I am beginning to feel a twinge of sadness, maybe the same sort of sadness that the other mothers felt in the fall.  I am not ready for this sweet season of half day school to come to an end.  For the past three years, we’ve enjoyed living in a small, safe bubble at this school and now that bubble is about to burst. And I’ve got my fingers in my ears waiting for the inevitable pop.

The leaving is so hard.  If only we could just stay a little longer, we surely would.

We’ve been visiting a lot of schools lately as we try to figure out where to send Sean for 1^st grade. So yesterday, after we got home from school I told Sean about the school we had visited that day and how we really liked the 1^st grade teacher.

“But I really like the teacher I have now,” he said.  He quietly dropped his chin to his chest and made that long face he makes when he is trying not to cry.  He tried to blink back the tears but they rolled down his cheeks anyway.

I didn’t have any wisdom to offer him, so I just reached across the table and touched his hand.

He wiped the tears from his face with is forearm.  “Wouldn’t it be nice if the teacher always went with you?” he whispered.

I nodded.  I pulled him across the table and into my lap.

And I thought to myself that a good teacher always goes with you, in some small way, wherever you go.