Save Your Napkin

Children are a heritage of the LORD... – Psalm 127:3

The girls had finished their breakfast. I was reciting to Emily what was in her lunchbox and which item she would probably enjoy for snacktime. As I spoke, I gently folded her napkin and then reached for the Sharp*ie marker to write her a note. She stopped me.

"Mommy, ummm can you please only send a napkin once or twice a week?"

Such an interesting request. Were other kids making fun of her mommy-drawn smiley faces and love notes? Do they have napkins on the table already? Was she just not very messy and threw them away mindlessly?

She went on to explain that like I, collecting and hoarding every drawing, note and piece of art she has done since birth, she keeps these napkins. Like old friends or cherished treasures, she said they are my works of art and she wanted to keep each one. She said I'd need to slow down with them because her pencil box no longer closes, that is where she stashes them. Miss Emily has every single one.


I immediately recalled a day last year when her teacher sent home in a baggie marked "IMPORTANT", a napkin. On that napkin, Emily had drawn a smiley face and written the words, "You are spechal, I love you Mommy." Her teacher, fully aware of the joy of Mommylove, snatched up that napkin and sent it home, with a note..."I noticed Emily do this today, definitely a keeper, perhaps even framable:)"

I tried not to scare her with the tears that welled up in my eyes, they were joyful ones, not sad ones. Who is this wonderful child? If we ever wonder what it is our child sees; if we ever wondered if they will imitate us or do as we do, wonder no more. They will . Though I fear she will imitate the times when I am a bad example, Emily proved to me that she sees and better yet, "gets" the finer, less bold demonstrations of love that are done every single day.


I will never look at a napkin the same. Once just a tool to simply clean up a mess, I now see napkins in a different light. The potential of each napkin was infinitely related to what we did with it when passing it along to one another. Maybe it does help to clean me up, in ways I never imagined.