CLUTTER IN THE LIVING ROOM, BUT LOVE IN THE HEART

Written by Luz Leigh – 1977

Revised 24 October 2007

      As I walked into the cluttered living room, my first impulse was to yell for the kids to “get this mess out of this room NOW.” Then something came to mind that my mother-in-law said years ago. “They’ll (children) walk on your apron strings now, but later they will walk on your heart.” So far, mine have only walked on the apron strings.

      There in the middle of the floor are the pastimes of a ten-year-old son and an eight-year-old daughter who had been entertaining themselves on a rainy afternoon. I had been away from home visiting with a friend who had just lost a darling baby girl in death. The replicas of their daddy’s John Deere tractors, balers, cutters, pickup trucks and trailers become as real to them as the “mess” is to this less than perfect mother.

      As I look again, I am thankful that we have been blessed with three healthy, active and ever so normal children. The toys are evidence that they have been here at home, happy in their play. I know that in the not too far off future each child will leave his play things for the “big, wide, wonderful world.”

      When they have all gone, then I will be the perfect housekeeper for there will be no little tractors, dolls, batons or footballs for me to stumble over. In the place of the toys and happy, or sometimes quarrelsome, voices will be the emptiness and quiet that invades a home when the last little bird has tried his wings and left the nest. I do not look forward to that day. Oh, I know that then there will be the time for the man of my life and me to do whatever we want to do without consulting the children to see what they have planned. But, great day in the morning, just how much “togetherness” can a couple stand!

      Just today I read an English composition that Number One Son had written earlier this past school year. He was writing, almost eulogizing his horse, Star, who was killed in 1975. In his closing paragraph he stated something we should all take to heart. Here are his remarks: “Anything you love dearly, cherish it greatly now while you still have it because now all I have is memories of Star which I will cherish the rest of my life.”

      We should cherish those things we love most. The people we love and respect should be told now while they are still among the living, not mourned when they are gone. We need to say to those about us that we care about them. Who can smell the flowers after they are dead and gone?

      So to my children and my husband, this is one way of saying, “I care and I love you.” But you still have to remove the tractors, etc., from the living room floor. What if someone important came to the door? On second thought, the really important people in my life are right here in the house, so just move the manure spreader a little to the left so I can get to the recliner. If President Carter or Amy or Governor Briscoe or anyone else should happen to drop by, we’ll just push the toys under the couch and say politely, “Won’t you come in?”

      I didn’t have to worry about what my husband and I would do with all that extra time to ourselves. Before we could retire, he left for his home in Glory. And that “perfect housekeeper” I had planned to become??? She is still somewhere else, certainly not in my home. But I do tell folks that I care about them, not just in words, but in deeds. And when my children leave my presence or hang up the phone, we always say those most important words:  “I love you.”