The Wrong Line in Heaven

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

Robert Frost

I keep hearing people say that they must have stood in the wrong line in Heaven–which explains their current predicament on Earth. I’m thinking I probably stood in the right line, but I’ve been questioning my judgement ever since. Maybe I could see “the end from the beginning” as the Bible keeps suggesting? So, I said, “Sure, I can handle eight kids. And I’m willing to put up with whatever it takes to help them grow into responsible, moral, pro-active adults.” I should have thought that through a little more carefully. There was some stuff in the fine print I may have missed.

For instance, eight birthdays a year. Every year. On a public-school teacher’s salary. Of course, that was a strong motivation to teach my children to handle their money carefully. When Son #1 was seven or eight, he desperately wanted a fancy, new bike. We made a deal with him. If he could earn half the cost of the bike, we’d fund the other half for his birthday. He was out of that chute like a thoroughbred racehorse. He mowed the lawn; he sold homemade popsicles; he washed the windows (I’m still a bit suspicious at how regularly they suddenly needed cleaning), he weeded the garden, and he even scoured the laundry for random change.

Eventually, he called in our part of the bargain. My memory is that we all trooped to Walmart, and he picked out the perfect two-wheeler in his (and our) price range. Oh, he loved that bike! It gave him a kind of freedom he had never had before. Now the 7-11 was within range. And the library. And probably all sorts of places I wouldn’t have approved of if I had known. During the last days of summer before school started, he’d race off with his buddies, intent on some adventure or other, throw his bike down in the yard when he came in for lunch, then head out again still wiping peanut butter off his chin.

But one late summer afternoon, when he rushed down the stairs and out the door, his new bike was gone. He searched our yard, the neighbors’ yards, even the school grounds down the street, but there was no sign of his beautiful new bike. He liked to think he was too big to cry, but tears rolled off his cheeks onto his t-shirt, and my heart almost broke. It didn’t seem like the appropriate time to mention that perhaps dropping his bike at the foot of the front stairs when he came in the house might not have been the most prudent option for bike safety. But he’d worked so hard; he’d done everything we had asked of him to earn that bike. And now it was gone.

“I’ll call the police and report it stolen,” I told him as we pulled into the driveway after driving up and down streets near our house without a sign of the bike. A couple of hours later, very solicitous policewoman actually came to the door and interviewed my son. He was so upset; he could hardly talk.

“Did it have a license?” she asked.

“No,” he told her. “But I carved my initials MV into the thing that holds the handlebars on,” he added hopefully.

The policewoman caught my eye and shrugged sadly. “I’ll do everything I can to find it,” she promised him. “But bikes like that are very popular right now. You have to understand I may not be able to locate it.” I took a deep breath and willed my own tears away.

Every afternoon for the next 3 or 4 days, Son #1 sat on the front porch waiting for the policewoman to bring his bike home. Finally, I couldn’t bear to watch him any longer. I quietly slipped out of the house and sat down next to him.

“You know your bike is probably gone? It may never come back,” I said gently, wishing that I could lift him into my lap and cuddle him as I did when he was young.

Son #1’s looked up at me in amazement; his voice was matter of fact and showed no trace of the anxiety I had been feeling since the bike disappeared. “I’ve prayed and asked for my bike to come back,” he said. “I’m just waiting here until it does.” Then he patted my shoulder. “Don’t’ worry, Mom.”

The next day a familiar police car pulled up in front of the house, and the policewoman knocked on our door. “I don’t believe it,” she said, “but I think I found that bike. I spotted it last night when I was on patrol. It was laying in the front yard of a house about 4 or 5 blocks away.” She looked down at Son #1. “You are one lucky dude. Bike’s in the back of my unit. You want to come identify it?”

Sure enough, Son #1’s initials were scratched into the handlebars exactly as he had reported. He didn’t seem in the least surprised.  But I was.

That line in Heaven? Now I see it was the one where your kids do the teaching.