The Mistake She Made

When the Matron was a Wee Miss, she spent several summer weeks in giddy anticipation of Brownie Camp. Wee Miss was new to the world of Girl Scouts and was a prime candidate for a badge of any sort, so organized, efficient and ambitious was she.

Wee Miss was not just attending Brownie Camp. She would reign.

So imagine her complete and total psychological collapse when this exchange took place:

Wee Miss: "Mama! It says on the calendar that today is Thursday! And the date is July 23. Is that true?!"

Mama: "Why yes."

Wee Miss: "BROWNIE CAMP STARTED ON MONDAY! I missed Brownie Camp!"

Silence.

Wee Miss: "How could you forget Brownie Camp!!! How could you!!"

Mama: "Mary, honey, I am so sorry."

Now, Wee Miss was fundamentally altered at that moment. How indeed? She had been prancing about in Brownie Camp cloud all summer, tossing Brownie Camp glitter and painting Brownie Camp dreams.

But her mother forgot the very thing that was most precious to the Wee Miss. Her dream. Worse, her mother knew about the dream. Watched it dance and plot every day. It was impossible to overlook.

Wee Miss picked up this little black ball of pain, sorry and rage and swallowed it whole. She nurtured that ball. Took it out and shined it up from time to time. As she grew, Young Miss picked up the burden. She felt that ball growing and rolling, in the pit of the belly for years.

Until one day Aging Miss realized --- there was no money. Her mother hadn't forgotten. Wee Miss talked about Brownie Camp every single day. That was the year at the cusp of food stamps and welfare, the lost father. Her mother had nothing--no food stamps, no money, no husband, no job, and no money for Brownie Camp.

She felt sorry for her mother, that very young single mother who struggled so hard to build a life for her three young children that she pretty much abandoned her own. And, the Matron saw herself, again, in a new light, how sometimes our grievances operate more like self-inflicted wounds.

Last week, the Matron returned to this moment and her personal journey because of this phone conversation:

M: "Hello, Great River Montessori Charter Public School! I'm calling to see where Stryker is on the waiting list for Junior High. The letter we got said he was #37 in February. Hopefully, he's much higher now."

Long ominous silence.

GR: "He's not on the waiting list."

M (alarm!! alarm!!): "What! Of course he is!! We filled out our application on time! You know me! We've been to that school, inspecting, thirty million times! His heart is set on it!"

GR: "Mary, you read the letter but we never received your confirmation form. If you read all the way down on the letter, you would see that you were to fill out a form accepting the spot on the waiting list and return this to us. We never got yours. We're way past 37. He would've been in."

Silence. Because the Matron is crying (an activity she continued just a little bit once the phone call was over, too). She saw that '37' and read no more. She chucked that letter.

Stryker is now #19 on the list but has been informed that the list does not move that much over the summer. He's enrolled at two other junior high schools.

But his heart? His dream? His fondest desire? Great River.

This, my real-life and online friends, is a private mama-venting post. For the moment, the Matron is not offering to Stryker that she has made this mistake. If he asks or questions his position on the list, she will tell him. But she's not introducing the topic.

She hates to think of her son shining his own black ball into something permanent.

Mistakes, anyone?

The Matron's is still bringing her great, great mama pain.