Lessons from a Blanket

This is the Big Blue Blanket. (The light blue thing he is using as a pillow. He was so tiny!)

From the time my oldest was about six months old it has been a permanent fixture in our family. For the first four years it came with us everywhere, now it mostly hangs out in his bed. It has been a cape and a fort a tissue and a friend. When he was teething he would chew on it and try and pull the strings apart with his teeth. When he was sad he would stick his fingers in the holes and bury his face.

My grandmother made his blanket for him. As she has for all my children and probably every one of her great-grandchildren. My Grandma Hart is always making something. She does not approve of waste - either time or resources. My grandma can crochet all kinds of fancy patterns and designs, but our beloved Big Blue Blanket is a simple chain stitch.When she gave it to me she explained that it wasn't fancy, just some leftover baby yarn and a free afternoon. I thanked her for it and added it to the pile of diapers and baby clothes, little knowing that in less than a year I would do just about anything for that blanket. I've washed it in the dead of night and turned the car around when it was left behind. I even tried making him a miniature one so we wouldn't have to drag the original with us everywhere. He could tell my stitches were not even and the yarn was not as soft.

One day when my son was a toddler we were visiting Grandma. When she saw him dragging his Big Blue Blanket around she said, "You know, I never liked that blanket. It seemed too plain. I wish I had done a boarder, or some kind of design. I was never pleased with how it turned out."

I was shocked to think anything negative about this blanket my son has come to treasure. It had become so important to us that I forgot that other people looking at it would not see how it had become something magical. It can turn him into a superhero and keep him company at naptime and make even the worst nightmares go away.

So it is with people.

My life is full of people who the rest of the world looks at and sees nothing special. You could pass my mom on the street and not realize how often her love saved me from the darkness in myself. You might see my sister-in-law at the grocery store and not know how many times she has been the only person who asked me how my day was and really wanted to know. And my husband; to you he may look like a stereotypical college professor. But that man loves me with more patience and passion than I was aware even existed in this world. My life is full of people whose influence has been magical.

And I have the tendency to look at myself and my own contributions in much the way my grandma looked at the blanket that day. Because at my best I can to many good things, and even look good doing it. But my best isn't my everyday. And I wish people would only ask me to do things I'm good at, and only after I've had a good night's sleep and a shower. Then I could be proud of my efforts.

Sometimes I'm embarrassed that people come over to the house and I'm tripping over legos in my pajamas with a screaming baby on my hip. And I push the unfolded laundry out of the way so that I have a place to sit and read stories to my kids. I want to give people my best so much that I sometimes forget that most of the time, what the people in my life need is just me. My presence, my love, my acceptance.

My kids don't care if my hair is in a ponytail for the third day in a row, and my husband does not care if I did not have time to mop the floor. All they want is for me to smile when I see them, and to listen while they tell me about their day. I can do all those other "fancy" things - and sometimes I do. But me simply being there - that is the magic.