Oh My Goodness

Oz has reached the end of the journey and saved the day. Glinda the Good Witch says to him,

“For the record, I knew you had it in you all along.”

Oz replies, “Greatness?”

Glinda: “No. Better than that. Goodness.”

I have so many thoughts about goodness versus greatness. Many of them stem from a quote I read over five years ago. I’m pretty sure it stuck out to me since I had just started Motherhood 2.0 with newborn Archer while I was paying for teenaged piano lessons that reaped more friction than education:

“What if we took all the money and time we put into tutors and coaches and private lessons, and invested instead in making our children holy? Not well-known and praised and celebrated for what they do, but humble and meek and truly holy in who they are?”

My sole ambition as a mother is to raise good kids. Greatness has a slight aftertaste of pride, but goodness, aw shucks, goodness is organic and fills them up right. I will die happy if my kids amount to average nobodies who are the somebodies that do generous and decent things for their fellow man on the down low. Because I'm focused on character over accolades, I notice goodness in others quickly and easily.

My daughter has a knack for looking cashiers in the eye and thanking them with their first name every time they hand her a receipt. She wrote a note to every person she mailed a graduation announcement to, thanking them for their influence in her life. She wants an old, white brick bungalow for her first home someday; a fixer upper. I love that she is sweet, rather than grand.* She craves natural light over glitz and prominence.

Greg makes our bed every morning while he’s on his 9:30 conference call. He also folds my clothes I’ve tossed on the floor and stacks them neatly on my nightstand. Recently, he prayed to be able to help someone in need as he left for work. He had $60 in his wallet from recycling the cords of dead vacuums. In between errands, he passed a homeless person who needed $60 to get a hotel for the night. He gave them his cord money (which we usually splurge on Taqueria27 with) without reservation. He also makes me an egg sandwich or nachos at 11 pm if I ask him to—you know, second wind fuel. 

But wait, there’s more!

I bought a wooden rocking horse at goodwill when Archer was a baby. As I painted it white, I got to a spot underneath revealing a metallic label complete with name and phone number. With a bit of hesitance, I called and had a conversation with a very nice man—in another state—who made the horse decades ago. He and his wife never had children, but spent many years making rocking horses for kids they considered godchildren. So good! How one of his horses rocked to Utah no one knows, but he was pleased as punch as I gushed about the great lines of his design and his superior joining skills. I sent him a picture of 15 month-old Archer striding his steed for *good* measure. 

Melanie is an early riser—we’re talking dressed in non-leggings WITH eye make-up by 7:30—and therefore carves enough time out of her day to deliver bath bombs when I need to “soak away the yuck” or a parchment-wrapped loaf “because some days you just need warm bread”. She also has openings for my 45 minute rants. I don’t know how she does it, but her goodness is always timely.

A local legend, George Durrant, once admitted he kept presents in his car trunk in case someone he bumped into throughout his day needed a boost. This is one of the coolest things I’ve ever heard and something I’m going to copy. Distant, preoccupied waitress? Present! Frazzled mom nursing at the park while her toddler disappears? Present! Steaming car with the hood popped in the parking lot? Present!

Allow me a final demonstration.

My brother-in-law, David, has spent his professional life as an engineer for HP. Henceforth, he is a problem-solving genius. He can troubleshoot a printer via text, tune a piano with his perfect pitch, and complete crossword puzzles with equal ease. He’s also wicked good at jump roping and bargain shopping. (Knees and budget of steel, I tell you!) The only other dark chocolate lover in the family, I bring him mousse every Fourth of July and he hooks this sister up with exotic 70-90% bars from his overseas travels. David also has a knack for searching out things that are hard to find. His patience has led to two of the most meaningful interactions in my lifetime. In 1997, he obtained the used book Greg would later give me for my bride’s gift on Amazon (then a fledgling bookseller). There is no book I checked out more times from the Shepard Elementary library, and while Greg got the credit for the best gift ever (complete with color dust jacket), David did the behind-the-scenes work. David also found my long-lost childhood mentor, Cindy Long, after she slipped through the cracks in 1999. I hunted her unsuccessfully for twenty years, but David worked his magic after an inspired prompt and found her last May. Would you believe she lives four minutes from my home? I can’t describe how good it felt to finally hug her, thank her in person, and then add her as a contact in my phone. Who takes impossible items from another's to-do list and accomplishes them on his own time? A good man.

Goodness gracious, my life is great because of others!

I watched Return to Oz a lot growing up—we recorded it off the Disney Channel onto a Betamax tape. That movie hit my scary threshold (meaning Watcher in the Woods nearly killed me). The photo I took of the emerald and diamonds reminded me of the scene at the end of that movie, when Dorothy is in the Nome King’s mountain and has to guess which green ornament will turn into Scarecrow. And, as a May birthday, every bit of jewelry I ever bought from Claire’s was my emerald birthstone. Long live the emerald!

Opening dialogue from the movie Oz the Great and Powerful

*Line from Joanne Ramos' essay "Putting Down Roots": "But the house resonated with me. I liked that it was sweet, rather than grand." The moment I read this line, I thought of my RE.

Quote about holy children seen on memoriesoncloverlane.com on Thursday, November 5, 2015.