The Napkin

I was just browsing through the internet and I saw a video for KC and the Sunshine Band…Please Don’t Go. What a blast from the past. When I was young, I loved that song. Back in the days when hopes were high and the whole future lay in front of me.  I would listen and smile and dream. Today I listened to it...it’s still a great song, but I heard it with different ears. The ears of a mother. And I listened with tears instead of a smile. It actually has more meaning now than it did back then:

So please don't go
Don't go away
Please don't go
I'm begging you to stay

If you leave
At least in my lifetime
I've had one dream come true
I was blessed to be loved
By someone as wonderful as you

So please don't go
Don't go away
Please don't go
Don't go
I'm begging you to stay

When did it all go wrong? Why did it all go wrong? What happened to the dream? Well, those are questions that will likely haunt me the rest of my life.  But “what ifs” are useless, so I try to stay away from them.  Instead, I live on beautiful memories. 

Here’s a particularly happy memory I have:

Andy was never a school lunch kid. He wanted a lunch from home. So every day for 13 years I made him a bag lunch. And every day with only a handful of exceptions, that lunch included a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  I would say “How about ham and cheese tomorrow? How about that leftover chicken?”  And he would always say “No thanks, I’ll have peanut butter and jelly.” And so, that is what I made. And always seedless raspberry jelly. Still makes me smile today. On his first day of kindergarten I packed 2 things in with his lunch. The first was a baggie with my picture on one side and his dad’s picture on the other side so he could see us if he got scared or lonely. The other thing was a napkin on which I wrote “You are my sunshine. Have a great day!”  The next day he asked me to write on his napkin again, so I did. He asked the next day and the next day and the next…

And so began a tradition for he and I. Every day I made his lunch, and every day I wrote a message on his napkin. It was a little different each day, but always included “You are my sunshine.”  One day I wrote “YAMS” on his napkin, and he figured out what it meant…”You are my sunshine.” From that day forward his napkin always said YAMS on it until his last day of high school. I can’t look at a paper lunch bag without smiling through tears. I still have the last bag of lunch bags I ever bought. Silly to some, I suppose, but those bags hold more happy memories than all the gold on earth could ever provide.

I love you Andy! YAMS forever and ever…