A young woman came to my door the other night. She was a student at a prestigious music school downtown and invited me to come see her perform.
I didn't recognize her at first, and was surprised a stranger would be so insistent on my watching her performance. But she said she knew me, remembered me from somewhere else. She said I used to see her and her sister at church when they were very little, maybe 4 and 5 years old.
They and their parents would sit in the last pew, slowly moving closer towards the altar to hear the sermon. It's a trick that preachers use sometimes, to get the congregation to move up or sit closer together. They make believe they are speaking as loud as they can, so you have to move up, or you don't hear the bible reflections for that day. They always wore matching little girl dresses, were very shy and hardly said a word.
After about a year or two, I didn't see the two little sisters anymore. I heard they had moved, but I didn't know where.
Turns out, it was down the street from where I have now relocated. She and her sister had become concert violinists at the tender ages of 16 and 17.
As I studied the face of this tall, dark haired teenager standing at my front door, my eyes widened when I finally recognized her. A smile lit her face and she was truly breathtaking. What a lovely one she had become, I thought to myself. What a beautiful woman she will be. It was wonderful to see her again.
We talked a little while about her sister and her family, how she had progressed over the years, and how much she loved playing the violin. I wondered how she recognized me. It had been a long time, and I know that I don't look the same. Her parents and I were just acquaintances, waving hello as we went our separate ways after Mass.
I always had a handful of kids surrounding me and it seemed I was always moving. As if she had read my mind, she told me that she remembered me because of my laugh. She was walking by the house one snowy afternoon as my sons and I were moving some boxes into the house. I slipped on some ice with a box in my hand, and fell headfirst into a snow bank.
After the initial shock wore off and everyone knew I was all right, I just sat there in the snow and howled. It was a loud and unpretentious laugh, quite undignified, almost a scream, a relief from the stress of the day. The same laugh she heard at church socials, coffee hours and pot luck dinners many years before. She remembered me as the lady who was always happy.
I gave up long ago apologizing for the booming and boisterous guffaw that I emit when I find something funny. A cross between a bull horn and an explosion, it's almost worse if I try to suppress it, because my sputtering makes me want to laugh louder, like milk coming out of my nose. I've gotten dirty looks, looks of disgust, and snooty glances. I've also made others laugh when I let loose, and both groups of people are fine with me. I never work up to it with a cute giggle, I just let 'er rip.
That's how God made me. After I wrote the check for my ticket and she left with the promise that I would see them perform, I thought about her parting comment to me. "It was always nice to see you" she said. "You seemed to be so glad to see me." I didn't realize it until she said those words to me. I always was happy to see her.
But I also realized the power adults have over the children in their lives and what kids keep inside them. Children remember the off handed comments, the criticisms and the short tempered responses when we are sick, frustrated or just tired.
They remember the tight lipped "no!" and the sternness of "not now" when they want just a little more of your time. They remember it all. I was fortunate that she always seemed to "hear" me on a good day. I'm grateful for that. Even though my not so good days were few and far between, I did have them. I still guffaw and fire away when things are funny, still sputter and curse when things don't go my way. But, in my contact with children now, I am choosing to be much more aware of how I treat them. After all, its what they'll remember about me when I'm gone.
How will you be remembered?
