Lessons learned along the Journey <3

The sideline siblings. 

You see them at every game. 

They are playing whiffle ball with crocs as bases, football…tackling is mandatory, swinging, climbing and gathering. Sticks, dirt, rocks, and on Tuesday night Joel and a buddy scored a collection of walnuts that had dropped from a nearby tree. 

I saw him carrying something in his shirt and being concerned it was an animal, I hurried over. But no. It was black walnuts. 

Eyes dancing, they told me they had found so many of them and off they headed to the shade of another tree to examine their find. 

I almost warned them not to try peeling the walnuts, but something held me back. 

My reason for telling them would have been based on my own experience when a friend and I at about the same age decided to gather a similar stash at morning recess. 

Having nothing to share for Show and Tell that day, we cooked up a demonstration on how to peel black walnuts. After lunch we raised our hands to participate in the grade school equivalent of “America’s Got Talent” and headed up to the front of the room. 

Our teacher and classmates washed with varied levels of interest as we ran through the steps we had made up. If you have ever attempted to actually peel one of those nasty things you know that it is a slow process that really begins with drying them for a long time. 

Eventually the teacher thanked us, we received our applause and then were tasked with cleaning up our mess. After all had been thrown away, we headed to the sink and here we discovered that the stain on our hands was impervious to soap. 

Despite scrubbing vigorously, our hands retained a greenish yellow stain. As we returned to our desks, our teacher encouraged us that the stain would eventually wear off. 

And so why did I not protect our precious grandson from a similar fate?

It wasn’t out of meanness, I can assure you. 

I would walk through fire for him. 

But I also know him. 

It could have taken several turns…he could have laughed and said he didn’t care, OH BOY!!! Let’s do it…or he could have gone ahead and done  in disobedience which would have hurt deeply. 

I also had no idea what they were going to do with them, so it seemed unnecessary to plant seeds that were not there. 

But sure enough, after the game, here they came with the evidence clearly on each finger tip. His mom told him that was quite a stain and shared the same news as my teacher that he would probably be wearing it for a little while til it wore off. 

He seemed unfazed, he learned as I did and can proceed from here forth with knowledge learned in a tangible way and he didn’t miss the opportunity to explore the pungent and unpleasant innards of the protective casing around a black walnut. 

Win. Win.