妈妈的蒲公英/My Mother and the Dandelion

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My Mother and the Dandelion食品伙伴个性空间%qx6?Y7|a([/W7U
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I grew up in a small town where the elementary school was a ten-minute walk from my house and in an age, not so long ago, when children could go home for lunch and found their mother waiting.食品伙伴个性空间Kd$kbf0bH
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At that time, I did not consider this a luxury, although today it certainly would be. I took it for granted that mothers were the sandwich-makers, the finger-painting appreciators and homework monitors. I never questioned that this ambitious, intelligent woman, who had had a career before I was born and would eventually return to a career, would spend almost every lunch hour with me throughout my elementary school years just with me.食品伙伴个性空间2E4K[ W J:P#l%Y
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I only knew that when the noon bell rang, I would race breathlessly home. My mother would be standing at the top of the stairs, smiling down at me with a look that suggested I was the only important thing on her mind. For this, I am forever grateful.
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9z/Z*\5{d;?0One lunchtime when I was in the third grade will stay with me always. I had been picked to be the princess in the school play, and for weeks my mother had painstakingly rehearsed my lines with me. But no matter how easily I delivered them at home, as soon as I stepped onstage, every word disappeared from my head.食品伙伴个性空间EeTvN3R-Q!e?

8l4dIaz0Finally, my teacher took me aside. She explained that she had written a narrator's part to the play, and asked me to switch the roles. Her words, kindly delivered, still stung, especially when I saw my part go to another girl.食品伙伴个性空间#h;U2Qv~/r

}yN&IU_;N0I didn't tell my mother what had happened when I went home for lunch that day. But she sensed my unease, and instead of suggesting we practice my lines, she asked if I wanted to walk in the yard.
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It was a lovely spring day and the rose vine on the trellis was turning green. Under the huge elm trees, we could see yellow dandelions popping through the grass in bunches, as if a painter had touched our landscape with dabs of gold.
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I watched my mother bend down by one of the clumps. “I think I'm going to dig up all these weeds,” she said, yanking a blossom up by its roots. “From now on, we'll have only roses in this garden.”食品伙伴个性空间n&} k"n6uM0@0@O

5rP-nm)T3bN#e8G0“But I like dandelions,” I protested. “All flowers are beautiful -- even dandelions.”
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T1Gs_|0My mother looked at me seriously. “Yes, every flower gives pleasure in its own way, doesn't it?” she asked me thoughtfully. I nodded, pleased that I had won her over. “And that is true of people, too,” she added. “Not everyone can be a princess, but there is no shame in that.”
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Relieved that she had guessed my pain, I started to cry as I told her what had happened. She listened and smiled reassuringly.
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“But you will be a beautiful narrator,” she said, reminding me of how much I loved to read stories aloud to her. “The narrator's part is every bit as important as the part of a princess.”
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$c\ L}8i;H0Over the next few weeks, with her constant encouragement, I learned to take pride in the new role. Lunchtimes were spent reading over my lines and talking about what I would wear.
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Backstage the night of the performance, I felt nervous. A few minutes before the play, my teacher came over to me. “Your mother asked me to give this to you.” she said, handing me a dandelion. Its edges were already beginning to curl and it flopped lazily from its stem. But just looking at it, knowing that my mother was out there and thinking of our lunchtime talk, made me proud.
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After the play, I took the flower back home. My mother pressed it between two sheets of paper toweling in a dictionary, laughing as she did it that we were perhaps the only people who would keep such a sorry-looking weed.食品伙伴个性空间 nQvGq8[2v!Z@

[4R4mAWp7G2J'N,w"pV0I often look back on our lunchtimes together, bathed in the soft midday light. They were the commas in my childhood, the pauses that told me life is not savored in premeasured increments, but in the sum of daily rituals and small pleasures we share with loved ones. Over peanut-butter sandwiches and chocolate-chip cookies, I learned that love, first and foremost, means being there for the little things.
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as\\(j"Gt0A few months ago, my mother came to visit me. I took a day off from work and treated her to lunch. The restaurant was bustled with noontime activity as business people made deals and glanced at their watches. In the middle of all this sat my mother, now retired, and I. From her face I could see that she relished the pace of the work world.食品伙伴个性空间ZHPO;O*zOq^

ZOQ$u3\*G}0“Mom. You must have been terribly bored staying at home when I was a child.” I said.
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“Bored? Housework is boring. But you were never boring.”食品伙伴个性空间pL `3T!]5EW

/Jn}+}o0I didn't believe her, so I pressed. “Surely children are not as stimulating as a career.”
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“A career is stimulating,” she said. “I'm glad I had one. But a career is like an open balloon. It remains inflated only as long as you keep pumping. A child is a seed. You water it. You care for it the best you can. And then it grows all by itself into a beautiful flower.”食品伙伴个性空间]!e+k,P D{Ozbv

6B:Jk+q`*|*Z'A6L0Just then, looking at her, I could picture us sitting at her kitchen table once again, and I understood why I kept that flaky brown dandelion in our old family dictionary pressed between two crumpled bits of paper toweling.