Paper Mate

BACK TO SCHOOL = flashbacks of Dad giving me a father's blessing and a new Pink Pet eraser in the wood-heavy kitchen at 405. I commemorated each scholastic new year by rubbing my thumb over the eraser like a worry rock the length of my bus ride. Ramona Quimby's dad gave her a pink eraser, too, if I remember the books correctly. I also have Ramona's hair. Unfair but true.

I will forever associate a smooth, unused, pink rectangle with new beginnings, equal amounts nervousness and anticipation, and feeling loved by my dad. I am passing the tradition on, although Pink Pearls caused the extinction of Pink Pets and therefore Pearls are all I can offer my swine, I mean kids.

Did you know pink is a noun meaning the best condition or degree? So a pink eraser is technically the best, finest, most perfect eraser.

The Atonement of Jesus Christ is a cosmic pink eraser so big and perfecting it has infinite faces and vertices. My most heavily used face is INFIRMITIES; the open umbrella houses every ache and sorrow I've physically or emotionally felt. It quells pains even I can't speak about. Where the river is deepest it makes the least noise.

I apply the angle of TEMPTATIONS for strength and AFFLICTIONS for endurance. SUCCOR races to revive when I'm fading. SICKNESSES cures better than bone broth. MERCY cools when I'm in personal Hell. An unusual surface is FORGET, where I beg the Savior to fuzz out old memories of being wronged so I can stop refueling the flame of offense. I have rubbed SINS raw; I'm forever blowing pink sawdust off life's loose leaf paper.

I love office supplies but school can be hard. 

I recently found a new side of the eraser for a dark but necessary experience in my editing: HONEST MISTAKES. Have you ever gone about your merry way, trying your very best, and somehow left a wake of destruction behind you? It's the worst. This kind of unsuspecting screw-up feels like acid eating your insides while your bright eyes and bushy tail drain out of the holes it made. But the pink eraser is perfect. The Atonement of Jesus Christ isn't just for BIG MISTAKES, INTENTIONAL MISTAKES, or STUPID MISTAKES. It can handle HONEST MISTAKES, HOT FLASHES OF ACID, and LOST FAITH IN ONESELF. In fact, I even found the GET BACK UP AND TRY AGAIN and I LOVE YOU FOR WHO YOU ARE AND WE CAN WORK WITH THIS facets.

BACK TO SCHOOL = blessings and erasers and the blessing of erasers. I show my work to get partial credit for wrong answers, my chicken scratches reveal the need for a tutor and paper mate. The teacher, the Perfector, stays late just for me again and again.

I continue to learn how much my Heavenly Father loves me and how relentless my grasp of Christ's Atonement needs to be.

Photo quote from "Abide With Me" written by Henry F. Lyte.

UPDATE: This arrived in my mailbox today after a two-day blizzard (maybe it arrived yesterday, actually, but my mailbox was frozen shut and I couldn't open it until today) and its contents made my heart swell all the way to the shores of Baltic Sea, where I hope a swan will deliver a look of serene gratitude to my soul sister and kindred spirit, Siostra Dixon, for her Priority kindness and exotic postage stamps: