A Purple Smudged Valentine

Shannon — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 18:34:00 GMT

Cade used a purple marker to address his Valentines, and insisted that he did not want or need my help. Now, I was at his side helping him decipher the purple smears on the glossy paper.

It was tricky because he could only fit about three purple letters in a row under the "TO:", and then the rest of the letters were placed randomly below. You had to really rely on those first three. Somehow, any trouble deciding whom a particular Valentine belonged to seemed to be my fault.

We were stuck on Kat... I decided it had to be Katelyn because there was definitely a 'Y' among the letters below. "Katelyn? Do you have a Katelyn in your class, Cade?" No. He didn't.

I tried again. "Kathryn? Is there a Kathryn?" Nope. No Kathryn.

I held the Valentine up under my nose while Cade tugged impatiently on my sleeve. I said, "Cade, it's got to be Katelyn. There are all the letters for 'Katelyn'. Are you sure you don't have a Katelyn?"

"Mom. We do NOT have a Katelyn in here," said my all knowing kindergärtner through his clenched (with one missing) teeth.

Just then, Cade's teacher walked by. I asked if he might possibly know of a Katelyn in the room.

"Yup. Right over there." He pointed to poor, sweet Katelyn, who was sitting right where she always sat. Cade said, "Ohhhh... yeah.... Katelyn." Apparently he rarely looked over in that direction.

Cade reminds me so much of myself. I glance at my purple-smudged life notes and feel that I can speak decisively about my world and the people in it. But there are people right beside me whom I don't even see. Jesus, however, knows every soul exhaustively. His Valentines were addressed before the beginning of the world... with each name spelled perfectly.

Tiny Paragraphs : Jesus, mistake

A Purple Smudged Valentine