Out to Pasture

I am retired from a profession where I never made much money, but for over 30 years, felt like I was being a productive member of society by educating children, promoting love of obscure grammar rules, and hiding Shakespearean insults in the district website I maintained. 

But now that I live life on a more relaxed plane, volunteering in places that make me smile, going to the gym whenever I want, and spending more than 22 minutes on lunch, I sometimes wonder if I am slacking, not pulling my weight in the cosmic load.

Recent incidents confirm to me that I still have a place in the stuff of life, albeit to a different, smaller, and simpler tune.

Incident #1: Fresh out of the nail salon with a new set of my favorite French tipped acrylics, I hurried through the grocery store before the bulk of the Friday crowd hit. I spotted a friend I hadn’t seen in a while, her 20 year old son in tow. In the year or so since I’d seen him, nonverbal, severely autistic and struggling with violent outbursts, he’d grown even more, dwarfing his petite mom. I felt a new wave of admiration for my friend and her husband for their sacrifices in keeping him at home.

She smiled and hugged me. “Shelly, it’s good to see you. We’re so wrapped up in all that we have,” she glanced at her son, “that we don’t get out much anymore.” She continued sharing that it was more and more difficult for her to calm him when he became agitated because he was now so much stronger than her. Her son, uninterested in our conversation, circled slowly behind me, making me a little nervous. He emerged within my field of vision and knelt beside my arm, staring intently at my hand. My friend stopped talking and we both became wary.

Her son rose slowly and grasped my hand, never taking his eyes from it. He turned awkwardly and put my hand on his shoulders. Not sure what to do, I held it there, waiting for him to make the next move.

He moved his shoulders up and down and back and forth, wiggling. He looked back at me, smiled, and shimmied his shoulders again, making sounds of encouragement. A look of understanding flashed onto his mom’s face. “It’s your nails! He wants you to scratch his back with your nails!” He clapped his hands as I obliged, gently dragging my nails back and forth over his back. He closed his eyes and lapsed into a peaceful stillness for the next five minutes while we continued our conversation. Later that day, she texted me for the number to my nail salon. “We’ve never seen him so calm. A regular backscratcher doesn’t do it, either. It has to be nails. I’ve never had long nails, but this is working so well for him I’m headed down to get a set.”

Incident #2: At the close of a college football game, I wandered down out of the bleachers while my husband caught up with a hunting buddy in the stands. The school mascot, a six foot tall blue javelina (think something like a wild hog) with large tusks ambled near, greeting children and adults alike who wanted a quick picture with him. A man with two little curly headed girls, perhaps four and five years old, pulled them close to the mascot. “Look! I can take your picture with him,” he said excitedly to the girls as he pulled his phone from his pocket. The older girl, eyes wide, smiled in silent awe as the mascot reached his hand/ hoof out to her.

The younger girl, though, dug her heels in, pulled back on the man’s hand and whimpered, “No, Daddy, no!” Terror drained her face even as her sister crowded close.

The man said nothing but pried the little fingers off his hand and turned his back to her to take pictures. The younger girl, now without any island of safety and with her sister firmly in the clutches of the mascot, screamed chillingly. The man paid no attention as he continued to snap pictures. Quickly, the tiny girl bolted straight for me, ran behind and grabbed my leg in a death grip. Her curls bobbed at my waist as she buried her head in my thigh and sobbed, “No! No!”

I dropped my purse to the ground and knelt as best I could with her clamped onto me and put my arms around her. I told her the mascot was actually a silly fellow inside of a costume and that he would never hurt her and that she was safe. The whole time, the man never looked back, never took his eyes off taking his pictures. By the time they finished, a weak smile broke through my charge’s teary face, and she laughed as I told her funny stories of times I had been afraid and then found out I didn’t need to be.

As her father made his way over to us, pumping his fist in triumph at all the pictures he’d taken of the mascot and the older girl, I whispered to the little sister. “Remember, Honey, you are a brave girl. You are going to help so many people in your life because you are full of courage and you are going to help them not feel afraid.” She nodded her head, sighed and let out one last sob as her father reached for her hand.

“You were such a little chicken, weren’t you?” he laughed as she put her head down.

“Actually, she is very brave, and I think you should be quite proud of her and her sister, " I told him quietly. I patted her on the head. “You remember, you are brave, Honey. You don't have to be afraid because it's right there inside of you for whenever you need it. You are going to do such wonderful things. All your life, you remember that.” She nodded her head as other family members joined them. They walked towards the parking lot and I could hear the father laughing and recounting, “She just took off and ran behind this lady and wouldn’t let go of her…”

The little girl, tightly clutching her father’s hand, looked back one last time and shyly waved goodbye.

I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the mascot. He held his arms open wide and pulled me in for a tight hug.

I may be out to pasture, but there's still plenty to do in that pasture.