This never meant so much to me as it does now that I have a toddler. Young children, as you likely know, gravitate toward comfort items. As you also likely know, toddlers have no filter for expressing emotions, little to no emotional intelligence to process them, and very little language to articulate them.
So when Grace is clinging to her blankie (her "lady," as she calls it), and it is time for us to leave and I try to take it from her... screaming ensues.
 |
| A small part of Grace's "Lady" collection. There's also one in every proverbial port. |
I wonder if that is how Mary Magdalene felt at the tomb? Her dear friend and teacher, Jesus, had been taken from her, and she was weeping. Weeping so hard that first the angels ask her why, and then Jesus himself: "Woman, why are you weeping?"
"They have taken my Lord, and I don't know where they have laid him," she answers, between sobs.
Here I picture Grace, with snot and tears streaming down her face in equal measure, crying, "Lady!!"
It's true that toddler tantrums can be hilarious, and even though you know you're not supposed to laugh, it can be hard not to. Today, though, her tantrum broke my heart. We were walking to daycare, and she tripped and fell. Usually no big deal, just a little kiss to where it hurts, brush off her knees, and we're on our way. Today, she would not be consoled. She pointed back toward our house. "Lady?" "No, Grace," I told her. "We're already halfway to daycare. There are blankets there for you."
No.
"Lady!!" she cried, desperately reaching back toward our house. How dearly she wanted to hold that beloved item. What a difference it would make for her aching heart and hands if she could cuddle with her comfort item. I tried picking her up - no. I tried taking her hand - no. Her various toddler contortions left her with her arm out of her coat, her shirt pulled up to her neck, and sitting, weeping on the sidewalk, even as Isaac decided he wanted in on the action and started to cry as well. I reminded her of all her friends at daycare, and all the baby dolls there who needed her to come care for them. She cried harder.
Only Lady would make it better.
Is this how Mary felt that dark Sabbath? Is this how she felt as she found her way in the dark to that tomb? Did tears and snot stream down her face as she saw the abandoned grave clothes, and she wondered where on earth her Lord was?
I don't mean to diminish the magnitude of the resurrection by comparing Jesus to my child's comfort item. Jesus is decidedly more than a comfort item. But upon this year's reading of the resurrection story, I am pulled in by the raw emotion of Mary, by her tears, her weeping. Having watched my own flesh and blood want desperately to cling to what she loves when she is in pain, seen her own raw, unfiltered emotion... it brought Mary's aching heart to life.
Maybe I'm a mean mom, but I did not go back to get Lady. I picked up my screaming child (even as she wiped her snotty face on Isaac's tuft of hair) and carried her to daycare. Miss Toni and I gave her various blankets to calm her down, until finally she found one she liked. When I left, she was, if not happily, at least quietly sitting in Miss Toni's lap, holding two "ladies" and one baby doll.
"Do not hold onto me," Jesus said. I hear it first as a denial of something desperately wanted. But perhaps that is not so much a denial as it is an assurance: we need not cling to the person of Jesus, because indeed Christ clings to us - holds us in his lap, as it were, comforting us, and promising that we are safe and secure, that indeed now, not even death is cause for fear or distress.
I know my child. I wouldn't doubt that within minutes of this traumatic event, she was back up and walking around the place like a boss, taking care of business, helping out, and telling everyone all about it. Or maybe she just serenely rocked and sang to her baby doll. Maybe the song she sang was a song of love, courage, and assurance.
Whatever she did, I am certain that she did it with the knowledge that she is held, and she is loved.
Lady, or not.
No comments:
Post a Comment