Your house is burning down and you only have time to save one thing.
Assume your family is safe. Assume your photographs have already been
removed because that's what experts say you should take. What do you grab?
On a shelf in my kitchen, next to the glue and rotting garlic is
something I cherish even more than Lean Cuisine. You can have my diamonds.
You can have my gold. You can have my computer and my extended warranty.
But you can't have this..
Most of us have experienced days when we're sure that our picture is
posted in the dictionary under the word "low." We may have lost an important
account at work. The children's schedules have us feeling like we have a
four letter sign on our car that begins with "T." Our dog has just devoured
a box of cereal which these days costs more than meat.
Nothing cures these moments like laughter. And unequivicably, the best
laughs I have known in life have been from my own children. Nothing I
accomplish will ever surpass the gift of giving life. And the evolution of a
young mind trying to reason the complexity of an adult society has been an
added bonus to this miracle..
So in between microwaving I capture snapshots of this rhetorical marvel
in my own children's discussions. No pulitzer prize could ever hold a candle
to the notes jotted in this little book in my kitchen. I imagine that when
the first scholars of written language compiled their list of nouns, they
used children for the process..
"I wonder if the tooth fairy is a boy or a girl."
"Fairies are girls."
"What are boy fairies?"
"Devils."
Gender..
"Is O.J. Simpson president? Missy told me he was because he gives out
lots of taxes."
Television..
"Mom, what is it like being a grown up? Do you like buying everything
you want and giving the kids nothing."
Appreciation..
"Mom, what name did you have when you were a kid?"
Identity..
"I wish I had a birthday everyday."
"I don't. Then I wouldn't get any Halloween Candy or Easter Candy."
Priorities..
"If alcohol and cigarettes are bad for you then why did somebody invent
them?"
Intelligence..
"Mom, are the friends you had as a kid still alive?"
Age..
"The cat went to the vegetarian to be neutered."
"What's neutered?"
"It means he'll come back a girl."
Science..
"What is a pilgrim?"
"That's the ones who don't know how to plant corn."
History..
"Who picked the very first king and queen there ever was?"
Politics..
"Mom, when you die, can I be a mom?"
Hierarchy..
"I can't swallow anything in my neck because my clams are swollen."
Medicine.
"Mom, is there only one man in the world for me? How many are there?
About 30 in each country?"
Madonna..
A developing mind trying to digest the concept of God has brought me the
greatest smiles..
"Mom, Sister Carol told us that God didn't have a beginning and he was
never born. But Matt's brother says that Jesus is cardboard."
Tangible..
"Does God have a nose?"
Image..
"My guardian angel can't protect me at night. Her wings won't fit under
the covers."
Logic.
"Did you know that the devil used to be an angel?"
"Yeah, his name was Saturn and he lived on Mars."
Cartoon.
Through the eyes of children we can see the simplicity of life. And if
we stop and listen to their simple reasoning, we might find simple answers to
what might otherwise seem complicated. Maybe we should let children run the
country. Nah, then what would fill the rest of the newspaper..
"Mom, you're the best mom I ever had."
I am a freelance columnist for the Pittsburgh Catholic.
Mary Lee Gannon
135 Springohuse Lane
Pgh., PA 15238
412-963-1436
