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We have been using a lot of bandaids around our house
lately. It always seems someone is in need
of one. In fact, today I dreadfully went
to Wal-Mart, the worst Wal-Mart in the world (on Emerson in Beech Grove, in
case you ever want to experience the phenomenon…or get a contact high in the
parking lot), to buy my one-dollar-sugar-free-vanilla-syrup that I cannot live
without. I put a tiny bit in my Lavazza
cappuccino every morning and every single time I smile inside thinking about
how that one shot would have cost me fifty cents at Starbucks. In fact, when at Starbucks, I have begun
simply ordering a skinny vanilla latte just to avoid saying “…and a shot of
sugar-free vanilla.” Because watching
them ring it up always makes me re-think the shot and over-analyze my drink
choice and of course that opens the part of my brain that screams, “Screw the
man. Why are you supporting the machine? You should be at a local coffee shop
supporting local business!” So that just
really f’s with my need for a good latte and thus the beauty of the Wal-Mart
syrup. A whole bottle for a buck. Who
knew!
Anyhow, so the bandaids.
I was over in the vitamin aisle searching for whatever vitamins the
gorgeous girl in one of my social work classes had on her desk this morning. Her skin is perfect and I thought maybe it was
directly correlated to her little baggy of vitamins that, upon my inquiry, she
listed as if calling Santa’s reindeer to attention. And they each looked so pretty. Three purple chewable ones, two clear liquid
ones, two pebble-sized aqua ones, and one flat pink one that resembled a
Tums. I thought, “Damn. Even her
vitamins are pretty.” She offered me a purple chewable one and I politely
declined, informing her that I was enjoying the lingering taste of my coffee in
my mouth mixed with toothpaste. Yes, I
actually said that.
So it was while searching for perfect-skin-vitamins that I
saw the bandaids. My eyes scanned past
Barbie, G.I. Joe, Hello Kitty, Monsters, Inc., and Despicable Me2 and landed on
the 97 cent Curad flexi-strips. Not only
would I be saving two bucks, but also I wouldn’t have to answer to my kids’
complaints that they were too girly, not girly enough, or, in the case of my
ten year-old, “dumb.” In addition, I wouldn’t be thinking about the twenty
cents down the drain every time I found one, sticky and nasty side down,
on my floor. Win win. Win.
I brought them home and apparently left them on the counter
because when I walked in the door tonight I found the little white strips all
over the counter, as if the Chipmunks had invaded the box in order to bandage
Alvin after one of his crazy stunts.
Here’s the thing about bandaids: It’s rarely about the bandage
itself. Really, I can count on one hand
the times my kids really needed one
(and usually those times were accompanied by stitches). But
the reality is that bandaids represent so much more. They are a visual reminder that someone took
the time out of their busy lives to address the pain, whether great or small.
I have vivid memories of sitting in the bathroom as a kid while my mom peeled
back half of the strip and then attached it ever so carefully to my
scrape. She would gently press it down
on my wound and then slowly detach the other strip, adding, “Alright. All
better now.” And I would jump off the counter and run back outside.
Everything was better.
In a matter of thirty seconds, I had been reminded that someone cared
about my smallest pain.
The reality is that I usually can’t find our bandaids
because our kids, okay, mainly one
kid, is in the business of handing them out to neighbor kids. I typically get
incorporated in this process. It’s like
she knows that these kids need thirty seconds of nurturing via beige plastic
stickiness.
So I have become the nurse of the cul-de-sac. One of the little girls makes special trips
inside my house to tell me whenever she gets hurt. And then she tells me about another time that
she got hurt. And about the mosquito
bite. And the twisted ankle that happened last year. And I hear in her soft, sweet, six year-old
voice, a desperation to be heard. Sometimes
I offer a bandaid, especially when I can find one; but more often, I offer her
thirty seconds of my life. I tell her
how sorry I am about her scrape, cut, bruise, fall, headache, tummy ache,
etc. That’s it. I don’t do anything super spiritual like
asking to pray for her. I don’t give out
ice packs or popsicles. I usually don’t
even ask to see where she got hurt. I
just simply say, “I’m so sorry. Are you
okay?” Every single time, she nods her
head yes, smiles, and then runs off to play again.
God says that he sets the lonely in families. This verse dances in and out of my head every
time a neighbor kid is at my table, on my porch, in my car, at my church. I am certainly not special. My kids often inform me that I don’t spend
enough time with them, so it’s clear that I’m not giving neighborhood kids
crazy amounts of my time. I simply try
to give them my presence, even if it means I’m busy cooking or working on a
paper or folding laundry.
No matter what I am doing, I can find thirty seconds to
offer my ears and, sometimes, a bandaid.
