When This Box is Full...

One of my absolutely favorite first grade activities every year is reading the book, “When This Box is Full,” by Patricia Lillie.  It is a simple book, and not terribly remarkable, as children’s literature goes.  But there is something touching about the young girl that marks the months and seasons with simple gifts added to her empty box. 

I read the text during our first week of school in the fall, hand out unadorned paper mache boxes with lids, let the students paint up a storm, then tuck them away.  Each month we add something to our boxes that remind us of that particular month.  In August, bright yellow wooden school bus cutouts.  In January, sparkling snowflakes.  In April, our book reading chart with the scene of children under an enormous umbrella.  These we carefully fold (or shove, as the case may be) into our remembrance box until the last week of school when we add our last item, a brilliant picture of a Painted Lady butterfly, as a reminder of our own adopted caterpillars. 

My Rosie, youngest of four and the only girl in the bunch, graduates from high school in forty-seven hours.  She will take her place on the stage with all six of her classmates (no, that is not a typo).  She will sit there on that stage adorned with metallic ribbon and helium balloons, deliver her Valedictory speech, and end her high school career.    

Though those in the audience will not be able to see it, she will have her own remembrance box sitting on her lap, stuffed with her own memories.  The contents of her box will strain at the seams, spilling bits of history from under the lid and down the sides, the memories of thirteen years of schooling in the same prairie school building.   

Most of her memories are pleasant.  She has enjoyed sweet friendships and has excelled in her studies and extracurricular activities. 

Some of her memories are not really memories at all, but rather the white noise of life.  The steady ticking of The Clock that ceaselessly marks time jumbles days, weeks, and months into a hazy film of sameness that has few distinctive marks.  She does not yet know that those will be some of the sweetest days of her life.  Unremarkable living means that life is pleasant, even when a little boring. 

Some of the scraps peeking from under the lid are painful to look at.  Heartaches and costly mistakes must take their rightful place in the box, as they do for all of us.  They are a part of her journey, a part of the formation of Hannah.  The pieces of her that have emerged as beautiful are partly due to those painful experiences.  Trying times either embitter a soul or release its beauty.  I am rapturously happy that Hannah’s is sweet and pure.  Only those closest to her can see the nearly imperceptible scars of difficult times hidden beneath a spirit of beauty.  Scars that tell me she is ready for a great big world.

At the end of my children’s book, the little girl takes her box filled with bits of lace, a robin’s feather, a foil heart, and a snowman’s scarf, and hands them to her friend.  Her treasures, so carefully guarded for an entire year, are made complete and dazzling by sharing them with someone she loves.

I think maybe Hannah has done the same.  Her treasures; her memories, her joys, sorrows, and successes are hers alone to savor.  But this child of my heart who came to us at the end of our parenting and who has filled our gradually quieted home with joy, has allowed me to partake in the gathering of the contents of her box.  It makes me catch my breath a little to hand back her box and say, “I love it all.  Thank you for sharing it with me.” 

In just hours, our youngest child will be done with childish things.  The concerts and track meets and class projects will take their place in her box, only to be exposed to light occasionally in the future as she reminisces, then puts the lid back on and places the box back on the dark shelf.

I love her so much. 

I am proud, yes.  But deeper and more satisfying yet is the knowledge that she has chosen wisely the things to place in her box.  They are things of purity and beauty. 

As I watch her accept her diploma and smile with satisfaction, I will smile too.  I am less sad that she is leaving than I am filled with joy that her box is filled with good things. 

Blessed is she.

Blessed am I.