Forward to the Past

Years before I became a mom, I bought something for my future child. At the time it seemed overly sentimental and silly. A twenty-two-year-old graduate student, hostelling around Eastern Europe with a single backpack and a budget that barely allowed for three meals a day can’t make unnecessary purchases.

But in the gift shop of the Budapest Art Museum, I fell in love with a piece of artwork that I absolutely had to buy for my future child’s nursery. Something about the two dressed bunnies riding on the back of a tangerine lion made me smile. My traveling companion politely averted her eyes as I forked over my lunch money in exchange for the bulky poster.

“It’ll be worth it someday,” I told Paulette as she offered me a bite of her pizza.

Years later, I hung the print in a clean white frame in my oldest son’s nursery and it has been in one my boys’ rooms ever since. Was it worth the extra baggage and the missed lunch? The boys never really noticed it, nor did I — until yesterday.

While holding my youngest, eight-month-old Colby, I noticed him focused intently on the print across the room. I took him closer, and he smiled.

“Lion, bunny, bunny, sky, sun,” I said. He laughed and reached out. He patted the lion, cooing and babbling away and I forced myself to pause – turn off the To-Do list items buzzing through my brain, and just look. I smiled, the colors reminding me of the children in paddle boats on the lake next to the museum.

The moment passes.

The laundry stills need to put away and I have work to do. I put Colby down on the floor and hand him a toy. But, he’s not finished. He crawls over to the nightstand and tries to pull himself closer to the print hanging above. “Uh, uh,” he says trying to propel himself up on wobbly legs and desire alone.

I lay the print down on the carpet and as I watch him crawl on top of the frame, mouth on the lion’s face and patting the bunnies, I laugh with him. This was why I sacrificed lunch so many years ago, back when my only responsibility was myself.

Even then, I identified with the lion’s long nose and narrow green eyes that said, “I will take my baby bunnies with me wherever I go.” Sharing smiles, Colby and I can go back together to a time with no To-Do lists.

Simple, beautiful moments like these, must not be allowed to pass.

By Maya Creedman