Tears and Laughter: Painting the past

We are all constantly entering new phases in life, and mine seems to have been on a continuum for a few years now.

This happens with all parents, both to moms and to dads. When little ones are born they cannot survive without us. And God grants us this incredible bond and connection and he makes them all so precious. They are all consuming in mind, time, heart, and spirit.

The Lord makes them adorable and cute as a gift to parents, because he knows they will quickly change into teenagers.

The older they get and the more independent they become the less they tend to need mom and dad. And this, of course, is the goal. We have no choice but to let them grow-up because that is what they do.

That is what successful parenting is I guess, producing children who become adults that are capable of surviving and thriving on their own. Not that as parents we particularly want it that way, it’s just that we can never lose sight of the fact that we are all just passing through in this life. Nobody gets to stay forever.

So I have evolved from this stay-at-home mom of four little ones who could hardly find 15 minutes of uninterrupted time in a day, to where we are today. I sometimes have to go tap on their bedroom doors to make sure they are still in the world.

With this new found time I have learned many things. I can bake bread from scratch, I found a new way to play Bingo, and I discovered I can paint. The color of any room in the house is subject to change based upon my mood, or the latest show I have been binge watching on HGTV.

So last week I was prepping a room to paint. I had to take down everything off the walls including this shelf that has a rod built in beneath it that allows for a quilt to hang.

The quilt that I took down from it is old and the patchwork is not fancy. It is not anything anybody would use anymore. It is faded and tired, but knowing old family not only stitched it, but wore it, before it was carefully cut into perfectly matching squares that would be sewn together for quilt blocks.

It had been hanging there in the same spot long enough for me to have forgotten why I had put it there in the first place. Behind it was a series of scribbles. These were the work of McCay, but they each drew similar masterpieces over the years.

Most all children come with scribbles. New parents should expect this and not be bowled over by it when it happens. Little artists do not care if it is old paint or new paint. It’s all one big canvas to them. And if you escape the scribble stage, they will most likely make up for it when they first learn to write their name and so proudly use those super big letters.

It wasn’t until I had rolled over them with the paint roller that I paused.

For a moment, I wished I had taken a picture of them. These were not the first crayon marks I have ever had to cover, but in our house, these were the last.

Time will let you do just about anything, but go back.

Amanda Walker is a columnist with The West Alabama Watchman, Al.com, The Thomasville Times, and The Wilcox Progressive Era. For more information, visit her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AmandaWalker.Columnist.