I'm sitting here in front of the screen yawning repeatedly even though it's considerably earlier than when I usually spew forth the daily post. Various trite sounding phrases appear in this white box and then I delete them because I am suspicious of them. I'm going to hand it over to the reader to come up with an opening phrase that works -- the theme we are working with is simple: sometimes something seems disappointing, but it can actually turn out for the best.
About a month ago I received an email from Judd the Red Chicken's friend's mom asking me if The Boy could come and celebrate her son's birthday. I felt that it would be nice for The Boy to support this friend and support this friendship, and so even though the day/time conflicted with some other obligations I handed the decision over to my kid. He chose to not shirk our pre-existing commitments. This wasn't the easiest decision, and to be honest, I wasn't even sure if it was the "right" decision.
Judd the Red Chicken came up with an alternative idea. Might we ask if his friend could miss a day of school to do our family tradition of a birthday day of service? Another idea was to ask if we could take him to Ellen's Stardust Diner. The Boy went there once with a friend of his and loved it. We know somebody (coincidentally, the very somebody who first taught us about the day of service idea) who sings there, so we thought maybe we could have a special performance gifted to our friend...
Quite frankly, I didn't think that the mom would be able to agree to either idea -- schedules are difficult, and school is important... But she was very supportive and said that we could do BOTH. The day set was December 4th.
Today was already going to be a glorious day for our son even if it had been a bitter 2 degrees -- the fact that it is December and got up to 61 agreeable degrees was proof that we live in a solar system that is cosmically aligned and sometimes, on some days, it feels like it.
After our newly-nine-year old friend arrived we were off to get supplies.
"Does it feel weird to be missing school right now?" I asked in the elevator.
"Yes," he said, "but in a really good way."
Let the service begin:
He passed out balloons to kids. A bit tricky because, as he pointed out, "there aren't too many kids like us playing hooky." Most children passing were too little, in strollers, so they were repeatedly turned down when they ran up and asked the mom/nanny if it was okay to give her kid a balloon. Finally some magic happened. There was a mom walking with a charming little sun-glass-clad munchkin and when the kids went up and explained that they were doing service and wanted to give her daughter a balloon she was crazy-kind about it. She made the kids feel so good about themselves and had her girlie give us each a hug.
The other great balloon moment was with a family -- two kids with a grandma is what it seemed like. The grandma didn't speak English, so she didn't understand at first, but when we were able to communicate that these kids wanted to give these balloons to these kids everybody broke out in enormous smiles. There were smiles and nods and clapping hands fluttering all around.
Next up was getting a healthy lunch for a homeless person. Initially, this went down kind of weird. Walking on Broadway my son was carrying the bag of food, and when he saw a homeless person he got so excited he ran up and handed it to the man. At this point two things happened: a) Judd the Red Chicken felt badly because he had kind of usurped his friend's service project, and b) the homeless man held up a finger and told The Boy to wait while he inspected the bag. He proceeded to pinch the rolls and poke at the bananas. Apparently it was acceptable -- but we were all kind of stunned. Fortunately, at this strange moment the boy's friend pulled us all back into the spirit of the day by addressing the boy's concern, and in so doing did his first act of spontaneous service -- he demonstrated what it is to be a friend. "Don't feel bad," he said to my boy, "you didn't do anything wrong. You were helping me. We are doing this together."
Flowers. This passing stuff out business is not for the weak hearted. You will get ten people that shake their heads and say no before you get a taker. But when you get a taker -- a gracious, grateful taker -- it makes it all worth while. Before we hit the jackpot we did meet some very kind ladies. Two of them thought that they should pay for the flowers, and the kids radiated dignity as they turned down the money in the name of service. And then our golden moment. We stood on the corner with our friend holding the last flower, and we were just about to cross the street when Judd the Red Chicken turned to his friend and said, nodding towards a lady slowly making her way across the street, "It's for her." We stepped back, let the lady gain the curb, and the kids descended.
"Wait," she said, "Are you saying that you bought this flower with the purpose of finding somebody to give it to, and you are giving it to me?"
"No. I didn't buy it. My friend's mom did."
"Well," she said with gorgeous dramatic effect, "That makes me feel very special that you chose me."
Our new friend chatted with us for a bit. She was off to physical therapy and then grocery shopping, but she was happy to take her flower along. She wanted to hear all about the day of service, our sabbatical year, how our friend was allowed a day off school... We found out that she had been a teacher for many years, and then a principal. She said in a very principal-like way -- in a way that in fact rivaled the Great Wizard of Oz:
"Our paths are probably never going to cross again, but remember this: your action has touched my heart. I think that you are extraordinary children with remarkable parents who are teaching you important things. I think that you [to our friend] are a special boy, and you are doing a beautiful thing on your birthday. May I have a hug?"
"We are all doing it together," he answered sweetly.
"And I would very much like a group hug." And she hugged all three kids in the same big squeeze. Take that anybody who has ever said that New Yorkers are cold. Within an hour my kids got two hugs from strangers... except they didn't feel like strangers by the time the hugs came. My eyes were so teared up I almost herded the kids into the street against the light.
We went home and made some pizza and the kids drew pictures to give to somebody. The Boy gave his to me, and thanked me for letting his friend come for the entire day. The friend drew a picture for The Boy and thanked him for coming up with this idea, "I'm glad you couldn't come to my party -- this has been one of my favorite days. It's made me feel really good."
To the park. Yes, they played, but they also did more than a smattering of service:
They picked up quite a bit of rain-soaked, soggy trash.
They left important reminders and words of encouragement on the paths (one by the friend was: "You'll get married someday" -- I can think of quite a few people who might appreciate that message; one by The Boy was: "Run 3 miles to burn off sugar" -- an important reminder indeed).
They stood at the playground gate and opened and closed it for caregivers pushing strollers.
As the afternoon waned the time was at hand to cap off the day with a sundae at Ellen's Stardust Diner. It needs to be mentioned that at the time of departure it was looking like our singing-waiter friend might not be working today after all. There was a schedule conflict, he broke his toe, he got stuck at court (for riding his bike on the sidewalk while delivering homemade cookies to somebody) -- a bunch of random roadblocks had popped up -- but after sending him guilt/pressure-laden text after guilt/pressure-laden text all we could do was cross our fingers... And once again, everything aligned...
...if you call the Rainman/Urkel/Buster Poindexter rendition of Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind" -- complete with female waitstaff doing the Alicia Keys part -- cosmic alignment. Which we all did -- clearly. It was brilliant -- in a very liberal use of the word kind of way. I've never seen my kid's friend laugh so hard (note: my kid kept eating his sundae while this crazy performance was happening in the five inches behind his seat???). After this introduction to in-your-face-theatre, for the rest of the time the kids were totally into the songs being sung, and were thrilled when the performers came up to our table (surely at the suggestion of our friend). Some people have connections that help them sink 10 million dollar deals, tonight I'm pretty content with our connection at a tourist-trap diner -- not sure anything could have made us much happier.
With the pictures I snapped The Boy is going to create a photo book to gift to his friend, so he can always remember his day of service, and more importantly, remember what the day of service is symbolic of: the world is better because he was born.
So to go back to my first paragraph -- that's why I'm worn out. And that's also why I'm more inclined to let others come up with the material. Letting the kid come up with a plan served us very well today.
