WACKY WEDNESDAY WISDOM: Letting Go of The Basket

     When my three boys were young, a set of Winnie the Pooh tapes were all the rage in the Stroupe house. When one boy outgrew all the gang in Winnie's hundred acre woods, along came a younger Stroupe boy to pick up the slack. As a result, I know every single word, phrase, and song from each of the episodes and can recite them with incredible accuracy to this day (perhaps unfortunately).

     During those days, and to be honest even to to this day, I catch myself speaking in Pooh language from time to time. For those of you who are not familiar with Pooh, my apologies in advance for the next few sentences. But for those who have watched, join me in some Pooh vernacular if you will.

    Since I am terrible at identifying trees, plants, or shrubs, I refer to every plant in my yard as a Gorse Bush. Every time it looks like rain, I make mention of a little black rain cloud. When I'm told it's too soon to eat a particular item of food, I say, "I wasn't gonna eat it, I was just gonna taste it." When an idea doesn't cut it with me, I say, "That would not be a very good plan." On the occasion of more than one person accomplishing something significant, I can be heard to utter, "Could we make a one hero party into a two hero party." 

     I can go on so I will. When an important event has arrived, I proclaim "Today's the day, Hooray, Hooray!" Others include "My spelling is a little wobbly", "Is that you there? I don't think so, it isn't meant to be" and "I was the recipient of a loud bounce."And when my wife leaves to go out and reminds me to look after the dog, I say "Don't worry, I'll take care of the little nipper."

     Please bear in mind I'm not proud of this. It's similar to me being able to recite the lyrics of most any song from the 70s and 80s, when my young mind was infiltrated by the Top 40 music of that era. You never forget those, though I wish I could in some cases. So to be able to speak Pooh language is as much of a curse as it is a blessing. But at least it distracts me from reciting phrases and tunes from the dinosaur named Barney, which nearly drove me to the brink of self implosion during its heyday. Fortunately the Teletubbies never said or sang anything I could understand. 

     Which leads me to a recent Pooh moment. An episode permanently etched in my brain is the scene where all the Pooh gang stands on a bridge dropping sticks into the water and then running quickly to the other side of the bridge in anticipation of their objects emerging later, a game known as Pooh sticks. An impatient Pooh mutters at one point, "Perhaps my stick's stuck" to which a wise friend replies, "It always takes longer than you think". 

     All three of my sons have grown up and moved out of the house now. Two have graduated college and have big boy jobs and the third is a college student nearly two hours away. The Pooh tapes are collecting dust somewhere in the attic, awaiting the moment a future grandchild's interest is piqued someday. Of course the VHS tapes will be utterly useless then as they pretty much are now, so we will have to come up with another method of watching Pooh. 

     A week or so ago, our middle son over-packed his Honda and set a course for Northwest Texas to chase a dream and start a new job with a company twenty-one hours away from Mom and Dad. Except for some dog whimpers it was quiet for a few hours the morning he left until finally Mom broke the silence. "We've got to let the basket go down the river," she said, talking as much to herself as she was to me. 

     The Bible story she was referring to was the one where Moses' mom put him in a basket and placed him in the Nile River to protect him from being killed due to the mean Pharoah's order. Exodus 2 paints the picture as she gently pushes away the basket containing her infant son and painfully watches it float downstream to an uncertain destiny. Agonizing moments pass as Mom loses sight of her child and wonders if the basket has gotten stuck among the reeds in the Nile. Perhaps during those moments of anguish as she helplessly waited for the basket to reappear from the reeds, someone near hear whispered, "It always takes longer than you think".

     I was told often as a young father to grab on to my kids and hold them tightly and never let go. Mom and I did that every chance we got. But even so, at some point, the basket has to go down the river. The caterpillar evolves into a beautiful butterfly and floats off with the breeze. A child who was singing a nursery rhyme with you yesterday is today departing the driveway in his car to venture off to a new job, a college, or some other destiny that doesn't require his parent's accompaniment. 

     But like Moses' mom, accompany we will, in spirit at least. It's a parent's destiny to hold them tight then have them whisked away from our grasp, though they will never be free of our prayers and our love.

     And hopefully as in the story of Moses, Mom and I have helped make the world a better place by releasing the baskets and sharing them with the world. Moses would go on to be rescued from the river and change the course of history. Only God knows what will happen with the Stroupe boys. So we wait patiently, all the while hoping God has designed the river in the shape of a circle.