Passion

I have a good friend, Debbie Johnson, whom I have known for well over 10 years.  She has two sons that I babysat, taught to swim and carted up and down the road many, many miles.  Debbie is a wonderful mother who stops at nothing to provide an amazing life for her boys.  I laugh at the woman she has become after the many years of being Evan and Drew's Mom.  She has a beautiful home that looks like it should be in a magazine.  She is quite the decorator and always kept her house perfectly tidy and clean.  She refused to have animals in the house, dirty shoes were to be removed at the door and forget about eating on her furniture.  Well things certainly change.  She added a fifth dog at Christmas this year (although only one is inside all the time), her boys leave a muddy trail throughout the house and you can find unfinished snacks and drinks scattered throughout the kitchen and sun room.  Fishing poles and hunting gear are littered down the hall.  Muddy boots and wet clothes are left where ever they were removed.  This is her life...and she loves it.

But the thing that has amazed me the most is her willingness to let her youngest son, Drew, bring home reptile after reptile to live in their home.  Snakes, frogs, lizards, iguanas...they have all resided at the Johnson home at some time or another.  Snakes have gotten out and never been found, lizards have been brought to the dinner table and frogs have been left to hop about wherever they chose.   And she doesn't bat an eyelash.  She told me once, "Angela, never say what you won't do when it comes to your children because you will sure get fat from eating all those words."

Allyson and I were talking about Debbie last week and admiring her laid back approach to the woes of raising boys. How wonderful that she lets them pursue their passion, snake or dog, hunting or fishing, more often dirty than clean, all while reaping havoc on her home and her sanity.  She pushes her fears and inhibitions aside and allows those boys to enjoy life.  This is an amazing thing when raising boys because you certainly will be giving up your clean house, stain free laundry and the security that no wild creatures are loose in your house.  And she does this.  For them.  And only for them.

I can only hope to be a mother that not only provides my children food, shelter, warmth, security, education and unconditional love but also that I strive to nurture their passion.  This will almost certainly be hard especially if their passion results in stained clothing, messy creations and additional work on me.  Yet I hope to look past the negative aspects that may cloud my vision as my vision must be that of a Mother that loves her son so much that she will support and encourage his passion each and every day.

My boys are still so young and their interests change from day to day.  Their passion hasn't really been a thought or concern to me yet.  But I think I see my Samuel developing a pure love for one thing...work. This little boy's heart is one that finds pure joy in work and service.  He has more toys than he needs and he could spend hours outside moving from activity to activity.  But he doesn't.  He plays for a short while and always stops to tell me he needs to work.  Always.  He looks for things that need to be cleaned up or hauled away.  He rushes over to his Mema's to see if her driveway is full of leaves that need to be raked and placed in his wheel barrow.  He runs to pick up stray limbs and sticks and place them on Papa's burn pile.  How lucky am I to have a son, at any age, that so enjoys helping others, especially his Mama?  If your passion is what makes you happy, what drives you, what excites you, then work is certainly his passion.

So where do I fit in?  Well, you see some days there are no sticks to pick up or leaves to rake.  And that little boy still wants and needs to work.  He usually drives his gator up to a tree and removes every stitch of pine straw his mother has carefully placed there.  And then he moves to another tree and starts again.  For a long time I encouraged him to go dig somewhere else or search for sticks in another area.  But I have realized, thanks to Debbie, that I have to let go and let him dig and rake until he is too tired to dig anymore.  And this will be hard for me.  My yard with the pine straw tucked perfectly around each tree and flowerbed may be a distant memory.  There will be messy piles of dirt and a trail of scattered straw in the grass and on the driveway.  It will surely add more time to my yard maintenance routine, but I hope to embrace these moments for what they are...my chance to let my son be a kid and just be happy.  And maybe it's a phase, but my heart tells me it's not.  This is who Samuel John Standley is and so his Mama will just have to change her idea of perfect for the happiness of one special little boy.  

Being allowed to explore you passion...

leads to happiness.