On Being Comforted

Do you remember when your world suddenly turned upside down mean and the older kids pulled your hair and called you names and wouldn't let you play hopscotch with them and they threw your bestest hop scotch stone so far into the empty field that you couldn't find it?

You ran home crying so hard you couldn't see and Mamma came bursting out the door to see what the commotion was. She knelt beside you, wiping away your tears with the backside of her apron and brushed your hair out of your eyes, scooping you up in her arms and patting your back.

You wrapped your legs around her waist and snuggled your face in the crook of her neck, sticking the two middle fingers of your left hand into your mouth and twining the fingers of your right hand into her hair. She never bothered to ask the particulars, for it didn't really matter. She just grabbed the weatherworn rocker and pulled it away from the porch wall, settling into it and tucking you in just right.

Then she pushed with her legs, sending that old rocker arching back, back, back until her feet were clean off the floor and the rocker couldn't move one smidge farther, suspended there for the longest time while you took a deep shuddering breath, waiting.

Then, ever so slowly, that rocker started to move forward, falling down, down, down until Mamma's feet gently hit the porch with a quiet ta-thump and her knees came up, up, up, hugging you tight.

It seemed like Mamma waited forever before pushing off again. There was something extraordinary about the rhythm of that rocker that shook the pain right out of you. Mamma never said a word. She didn't have to.

It never took very long before the world came right side up again and you relaxed your grip on Mamma's hair and just listened to the ta-thumping of her feet and the rolling of the rockers on the hard wood porch.

If anyone had the audacity to try and intervene or talk to you, they would be waved away. No one interfered with a good rocking. After a bit, your friends would call, and you would slide down off Mamma's lap and go running to play. Sometimes, Mamma would just sit in the chair a bit longer and smile.

These days, I haven't a porch much less a rocker on it. My boys are well past the hugging and rocking stage of life. But sometimes their world still turns wrong side up, and they still need someone to spend a minute with them until it changes round. Especially at the start of a new semester of school.

I spend time these days praying for all the students who are returning to class, especially for the freshmen whose worlds will be vastly different. Let the meltdowns be minor and pass quickly.

Please help me see when I just need to stand still with someone for a minute until the storm passes.