“The soul is healed by being with children”
~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky
This of course is a flashback…
I was suddenly the mother of newborn baby twins. And I do mean suddenly. As in a crazy whirlwind of 2 weeks time. But that’s a whole different story…
This is the treasured, true story of
Mama Bunnie:
So there I was. Sitting there at home with not one, but two screaming infants. And totally clueless… that’s when I met Auntie Susan. She was a seasoned Twin Mom. She also had a boy and girl set. They were her first children. I could never figure out why she and her husband had decided to have two more babies after their twins were born. One day above the din of my own salt and pepper shaker set of babies, I just went ahead and asked her what the heck they were thinking. She looked at me and simply said,
“Children are a blessing.”
I have thought long and hard about her words since. She is right. Children are indeed a blessing.
At that time, hers had reached adolescence. Somehow all four had survived the endless hysterical calls to “Mr. Yuck”; that phone number on the fridge magnet for mothers of small children to call when one or more of their little ones ingest something that could possibly kill them. And there was the time when her kids were playing out in the garage and started goofing around with trying to open up a folded stroller. That game turned out to be not so fun when the oldest child ended up with his finger cut off. Ziplock sandwich bags sure come in handy when when one needs to keep a finger on ice in order to get to the hospital and have it sewn back on. Stuff happens…
But Auntie Susan knew everything about how to bottle feed two babies at the same time, assembly line diaper changing, carrying one baby strapped to your chest and the other to your back. And then walking without falling down.
Auntie Susan was invaluable.
When Heather and Joel were about 3 years old and Christmas rolled around, Auntie Susan invited our family over to give our twins their Christmas gifts. There the gifts sat, under the shiny Christmas tree. I guess she thought it was obvious whose gift was whose. To my kids it certainly was. There was a bright red fire engine large enough to ride on and a stuffed bunny in a pink dress with three baby bunnies. Both kids squealed with delight. Heather, without a moment’s hesitation, dashed for the fire truck, while Joel at the absolute same second, dashed for the bunnies.
And so it remained. Eventually, Heather’s fire truck went to The Place of Broken and Forgotten Toys. But Joel’s Mama Bunnie lived on. And on. When Joel was about 12, he informed me that Mama Bunnie was me. He placed her, with great reverence, on the top of his bookcase.
And there she remained until he was 18 and his life was cut tragically short. Heather told me later that when Joel’s friends were hanging out in his room, doing God knows what, if anyone teased him about Mama Bunnie, he was very resilient. But if anyone’s hand reached toward her– it was a death threat. She told me this handsome, muscular, young male invariably would warn the hapless offending individual,
“No one touches the Bunnie”
Children are indeed a blessing…
I suppose we will all have some regrets at the end of our lives. But I firmly believe there is nothing more precious than a child. Any time, effort and love spent on a child will never be regretted
