Spring triggered curiosity with seven-year-old Benjamin as he turned over a rotten log and discovered a slug. He brought the animal to show me on his open palm and introduced the animal as “Slimy.” We spent some time together watching Slimy creep first one way and then the other across Benjamin’s hand. After a while, Benjamin decided to return him to his natural habitat under the log. When we checked the next day, Slimy was nowhere to be found. Evidently, even a very slow traveler will eventually get where he is headed.
Our sharing of Slimy’s journey reminded me of my own son and my mother, like me known as “Grandma” to her grandchildren. We lived close to my parents during the year my husband was on Army duty in Korea. One day, an excited five-year-old Murray rushed in from Mama’s back yard to the kitchen where she was cooking supper, “Look, Grandma, at the worm I found.”
She reacted immediately. “Murray, go throw that back outside and wash your hands – good!” His face fell, and she looked up at me, “I think I said the wrong thing.” I was compelled to agree with her and suggested that the next time she would marvel with him first over the worm, and then take care of any issues with germs. In her defense, Mama learned and shared several wonders with Murray before the year was out, and he experienced as much dirt as a little boy requires and washed his hands from time to time to calm her fears. Perhaps watching this exchange made me less alarmed about dirt.
With our own new cautions about hand-washing, Benjamin eventually scrubbed the grime in the picture from his hands, as he should have, but not before the two of us enjoyed a shared lesson in gastropods with this Grandma more excited about his curiosity than worried about his dirt.
