reflecting, part two

I think one of the most important questions we learn to ask as humans is, why? Any of you who currently have or have ever had a two or three year old (and it often goes on for years) knows that why is word that we learn early on. Ideally, we never stop asking it.

The areas of my own life where I asked why are the areas that I experienced (and continue to experience) the greatest areas of growth. My story starts of course, with my birth but I’m gonna keep my early years brief. I had good parents. Not perfect, but parents who sought to live lives of integrity and thoughtfulness. Did they fail every single day, just like me? Yup. But I believe with all my heart that they did the best the could with what they had been given. And I forgive them their shortcomings. And move on.

There are two things I gained from my mom and dad that have served me well in my life. The first is how my dad honoured women and motherhood. The second is that my parents rarely punished us. In an era where we were coming out of the “just give them a good lickin” and moving into the hard core carrot and stick phase, I think I was fortunate in that era to have parents who expected us to be reasonable. They didn’t have a lot of rules for us to break, but they wanted us to be reasonable and respectful. Sometimes they came unglued on us, but it was the exception and not the rule. They were sensible people.

Oh and one more thing. My dad encouraged me to take typing in high school.

I was always a curious kid. I read early and became a discerning reader at a young age. My maternal grandmother gave me a set of children’s classics; stories, novels, poems, fables and fairy tales. These were a grounding force in my life for moral compass, love of literature and the smell of old books.

My first experience of rapture was when my grade two teacher, Mrs. Lutz, who was young and beautiful and wore hotpants because it was 1970, read out loud to the class Charlotte’s Web. I died of happiness at least a dozen times during that reading. I rushed to her desk after each chapter to see the pictures. I bought the book a few months later and read it more times than I can count.

When I began my own family, that core memory would come back to me daily. Why did it matter so much? Why was it so good? Why do books matter? And I thank Mrs. Lutz silently in my thoughts and prayers still.

I'm pretty sure that this is an actual image of Mrs. Lutz. Our principle would not allow her to wear a mini skirt, so she wore hot pants, because they had built in shorts with a mini skirt over top. Rebel woman.