On Peanut Butter

Those moments when time seems to stand still.

A few days ago I had finished loading groceries onto the conveyor belt and looked over to the other end where my tween was bagging them, just in time to see Adam’s Peanut Butter fall to the ground. The glass jar shattered into a million pieces, gluing itself to the brown, oily goo it had encased seconds before.

My hands covered my face. This child. Just like this. All week.

I pulled my hands away, and there he was. His head hung and his shoulders hunched, weighed down by an invisible burden.

This was a critical moment: perhaps the kind where “core memories” are made. I saw before me two paths: one in which I followed through with my knee-jerk reaction to unload my own embarrassment and frustration onto the weight he was already carrying, adding another “chop” to his self-value, shaming myself, and further hammering the wedge that had forced its way between us earlier in the week.

I chose the other path. I walked forward, gently said his name, and told him it would be okay.

“Look,” I said, “People are already coming to help us.”

A worker reached us and poured a grainy powder over the goo. The checker began telling stories about stuff other people had dropped (apparently sesame oil creates a nasty stench).

The worker scooping the peanut butter asked my son if he wanted to go get another jar. We described where to find it, and he hurried off, proud to be thought responsible enough for the task.

The mess cleaned up, the groceries bagged, peanut butter in tow, we went home.

A lump forms in my throat when I think of this brief incident. Partly because of the path I might have chosen, partly because I have thoughtlessly chosen that other path before, and mostly relieved that, at least this time, I made a better choice.

All parents make mistakes sometimes.

All children carry silent burdens sometimes.

Please, everyone, let’s choose to lift that weight rather than add to it.

At least sometimes.