Thumbnails

As my head cleared the last stair, I spied my younger nephew, Z, chomping away at an apple.  As he appeared quite absorbed in his latest video game,  I simply dropped a kiss on the crown of his head, and he murmured acknowledgment.   Then I went to sit by his brother, Auz, on the floor across the room.  As Auz began to fill me in on the latest happenings in his world, suddenly there came a great rending cry from behind us, as Z erupted in wails of anguish.  I leapt and spun in one fluid motion (I wish.)  from my spot on the carpet, sure a carotid had been sliced or at least something of the same magnitude.  Instead, Z sat dangling his apple from his little baby-bird hand with fat tears rolling down his sun-bronzed cheeks.  No blood, no bones, no immediately evident explanation.

“Z, honey, what’s wrong?”

It was all he could manage to gasp between sobs, “My a-a-apple–”

I was standing in front of him, wide-eyed in confusion.  “Your apple?  What about your apple?”

He nodded his little blonde head up and down furiously.  “My a-a-apple. ”  Then he pointed to his mouth.  “This tooth.”  He wiggled one of his front upper teeth with his finger then shrieked in pain.  The waterworks continued, unchecked, down his face.

I began to see the problem.  “Oh.  You bit into the apple, and it made your loose tooth hurt?”

Again, he nodded, his gold eyes glimmering.

“But the tooth isn’t loose enough to come out yet?” I continued.

Nod.  Then he marched furiously into the bathroom and chucked the offending fruit into the trash and came out for a hug, but it would seem that my Auntie arms weren’t really wide enough to fit the hazards of the day, for after about 30 seconds that high-pierced wail was back calling for his momma.  I kissed his sodden cheek and sent him downstairs to where she sat.

I followed my little guy down the stairs a few moments later, and he was nestled on his mother’s lap looking much more content.  My sister-in-law said Z had a really bad cold, and to prove it he went and snorted loudly.  He really didn’t look like he felt well. Poor little guy.

“Z, Auz and I are going to go swimming.  Do you want to come?”  I gently asked the suffering little boy.  He simply burrowed further into his mother and shook his head.

A quarter hour later found Auz and I in the pool talking about 5th grade band and its complexities when the patio door slid open.  Z, now in his swim shorts and shirt, wandered to the pool steps.

“You feel like swimming now?” I asked.

Z, always one dubious of obvious questions, studied me for a moment then nodded slowly.  “But,” he said earnestly, “I cannot get my head wet because-”

“I know, Z.  Because of your cold.”  I interrupted.

He looked at me in confusion.  “No,” he declared dramatically.  “Because of this,” then held his right thumb up to the sky.  It was grubby with a long, ragged nail half torn from the cuticle.

Now the confusion was mine.  “Because of your thumb nail?  You can’t get your head wet because your thumbnail hurts?”

Z nodded solemnly as I reached for his hand, taking his little one in mine.  Inspecting the thumb closely I could see where the nail had bent back and ripped away from the cuticle, possibly preventable had the nail been shorter.  Hmmh.

“Z,” I suggested softly.  “I think we can fix this.  I think it will stop hurting if we clip the rest of the nail.”

He snatched his hand out of mine in 0 seconds flat and grasped it to his chest staring up at me in horror.  One word escaped his aghast mouth, “NO!”

“But, Z, it hurts because it’s still hanging on.  If we get it off, it won’t hurt.  The nail is too long.”

He stared at me considering for a second.  Then he nodded assent.   “Mommy can trim it. Tonight.  Not now.”

I nodded.  And then, an hour later, when he cried out after bumping the thumb against something, I nodded when he refused my help again.  And, finally, I simply nodded when I kissed him good-bye and he still had that nasty nail clinging to his thumb.

Now, here’s the thing I left there thinking: Z, I can do nothing about the loose tooth that hurts but is still too set to come out.  I can do nothing about your cold that has your head plugged up and feeling crummy, but that thumbnail, now that, I could fix.  Why are you so desperately fighting help with something that is clearly causing you grief and misery when it would be so easy to let me take care of it?  Then, I had to laugh, because that is such a, “Me too!”

“Come to me all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”  It’s offered freely, and how easily I dismiss it.  It has been such a hard, hard season, and, yet, I cling to my “thumbnails”  when they could be so easily removed.

Maybe the “rest” comes in the form of friends and family who are waiting nearby if only I’d be less proud (or less tired), or maybe it comes in the form peace if I’d bother to seek it again in my familiar retreats like running.  But often I, instead, sit immobile, clinging to my “thumbnails.”

Here is the utter truth about the “thumbnails”: they are not only extraneous, they are poisonous.  They change us into people we are not meant to be, people we do not want to be, but they can also be useful.  “Thumbnails” can drive us back to our knees to the foot of the Throne. They can remind us that we are not what this world is about. (Maybe this is where I should ask if you realize we are not talking about actual thumbnails anymore…)  He can and does use anything to reach us.  Whatever you’re dealing with, maybe it’s not about you. Maybe it’s about the person sitting next to or across from you.  Maybe they need to see how you respond to your “thumbnail.”  You never know; maybe, next time, they’ll be the one sitting next to you gently holding the clippers.