Purple Crayons (Happy Thanksgiving)

The summer after I graduated from my Virginia university, I worked in a church-run day care center in my tiny hometown.  I taught the two and three-year olds.  Those children are now old enough to have graduated from college and begun careers and families of their own, but I refuse to think of them that way.  Instead, my mind will forever envision them as the two and three-year old munchkin versions of themselves – chubby-cheeked, dimpled-legged, lispy-speeched versions.  No doubt they would prefer I allow them to grow up, but as it is my mind (and my story) they shall remain toddlers.  But, I digress…

Late one lazy day that summer as shadows began to lengthen, we waited for parents to arrive. Rugrats solved pint-sized problems on the big, fat tube television.  Small boys played with toy cars, enormous plastic dinosaurs, and wooden blocks.  Little girls mothered rubber dolls and fussed over dinner preparations at the play kitchen.  I sighed in contentment and sank into a teensy yellow molded plastic chair at the child-sized coloring table.   Across from me sat a living pixie-doll named Emily.

Emily was not part of my two and three-year-old class.  Emily was four, and I only saw her at the end of the day when we blended classes to await the last of the parents to come take our tiny charges home.  Emily, with large, bright blue eyes and corkscrew strawberry curls, slumped in her chair staring down at her empty hands where they rested on the table.  I eyed her pensively. What to say to this tiny picture of dejection?  (Maybe I should tell you that Miss Emily was an itsy bitsy bit of a drama queen, no?)  I could feel the smile tug at the corners of my lips as I imagined the coming conversation.

Finally, I asked gently, “Emily, what’s wrong?”

No further prompting necessary, she threw the back of one tiny pale hand to her forehead as enormous tears glistened in her eyes, yet failed to fall.  Immediately, a litany of woes poured forth from her cupid’s bow mouth, “I’ve had a rough day.  On the playground, Sarah wouldn’t let me swing, and then, Mommy packed Spaghetti-o’s for lunch, and at snack Ms. Dellinger only gave me one graham cracker, and now, and now, oh, Jacob took my purple crayon!  Ahhhhh.” The last came as a tortured wail, and with the wail those promised tears finally fell.

Looking at Emily, I could see that her pain was real and heartfelt, but even then, all I could think was, Oh, Sweet Child, I truly hope that the worst thing you ever face in life is having your purple crayon taken away.  Instead of saying that, though, (no fool, this girl) I went to her on my knees, gathered her in my arms, and held her until those tears subsided.  I whispered that everyone has rough days sometimes, and we all end up okay.  When sobs stopped wracking her little body, I asked her what might make her feel better, and Emily responded, “A purple crayon.”  So, of course, I found another purple crayon, and gave it to her.

Would that all of life’s problems were solved that easily.

These days, every time I turn on the news or glance at the paper, I think of Emily and her purple crayon.  I think of my wish for her and, know that, really, it was a wish for all of us.  These days, every time I turn on the news or glance at the paper, I think someone may have taken our collective purple crayon (No matter where you stand politically or for whom you voted, no one truly got what they wanted with perhaps the exception of the man who won.) and we don’t quite know what to do about it.  I think perhaps as a society, we ‘d love to throw the back of our hand up to our forehead and let enormous tears well in our big eyes, be those eyes brown, blue, or green.  But like it or not, we have to go on, coloring our days with a different crayon these next few years because this is our world, our nation, our life.  Things may not be as we wish, but everyone has a bad day sometimes.  We go on to face another day, month, year – another election.

Truthfully, the bottom line isn’t the purple crayon or losing our own.  The bottom line is going on our knees to the person who is hurting more than we are about losing their own purple crayon and asking, What can I do? The bottom line is being willing to hold onto that other person through their pain until they no longer need our arms – even if we don’t understand their views or emotions.   The bottom line is the willingness to love despite our own hurt.  The bottom line is simply the love we have for each other.

Love covers a litany of woes – even missing purple crayons.

Happy Thanksgiving.