A Mother's Regret

The evening found me stressed, tired, irritable. My husband was downstairs in his shop, I was cooking supper, my other 2 children were otherwise occupied, and my four year old was in the kitchen with me, playing with the broom, pretending to sweep the floor. I was normally, for the most part, a quiet, loving, even- keeled type of mom, but for whatever reason, this night, tried a brief different role that I would regret for years after.

Kurt was playing with the broom while I was cooking, and accidentally knocked off a little ornament he had made at sunday school. It was a ceramic hanging that had a little figure of a mouse whose body was made from his thumb print. It hit the floor and broke. I remember in that split second choosing how I would react. I had heard other mothers speak crossly, yell at their kids when they had done wrong, speak in that flip, strident tone. I was tired, it was getting late, and had worked all day. Now he had broken something important to me by being careless. In that second, I had the conscious choice to react patiently, or angrily, and God help me, decided to give in to my selfishness, and reacted angily. I said, "Kurt, look what you did! What were you doing with that broom anyway? Now, you've broken it. Get on in the other room, while I clean it up."

He disappeared, and I picked up the pieces, still annoyed. After a few minutes, it finally soaked into my self absorbed brain that it was really quiet in the other room.

Walking into the darkened living room, it took me a moment to see the little figure sitting on the big couch alone in the dark. Suddenly, the world didn't seem to be all about my bad day. Moving closer, I saw my little boy trying to swallow silent sobs, tears running down his cheeks, not making a sound.

"Oh, no, now I've done it", I remember thinking. I knew it was too late, I had hurt my baby, and needlessly. He was innocent, happily playing in the kitchen with his mom nearby, who had just turned on him in anger.

I did my best to make things right. I knelt down, told him moms sometimes make mistakes, and that I knew he didn't break it on purpose, that it was an accident. And then I had him take the broken ornament down to Dad in his shop, so that they could glue the pieces together again. I still have that ornament, with the repaired pieces. And today, 27 years later, he laughs and gives me a hard time about it. But I will always wonder if there are cracks in his heart that I caused years ago by that little betrayal. He will never let me know, because he doesn't want to hurt me. But, I still ache from my actions. And it serves as a reminder to me now, that I have that choice before I react. Whether to satisfy my own selfish emotions at the moment, or try and control myself. Because you pay, at some point, one way or the other. Unfortunately, I can't go back and change my actions, and the hurt that I caused my child that night, will always be with me.