Will You Eat the Life Saver?

In the novel The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, by Kim Michele Richardson, starving little Henry presented his prized piece of candy to the traveling packhorse librarian that visited his Kentucky mountain school.  Knowing the sacrifice and preciousness of his gift, Book Woman placed the single, wrapped Life Saver in her treasure box and stored it under her bed.  During a recent book club gathering, I posed the question, “Would you save or eat the Life Saver?”  Obviously, there is no right or wrong answer, although I was out voted 5 to 1 by my book club friends.  This gift, this question, has haunted me for months.  

When I graduated from high school, Grannie Yeager gave me a bath towel.  Grannie Yeager was not my grandmother, and the towel was not simply a towel.  I grew up in a home where family titles were sacred.  Until Mom’s friend Betty came into our lives and introduced us to her mother, Mrs. Yeager, we had never referred to someone outside of the family with familial terms.   For most of her life, Grannie Yeager struggled to provide for her children … but she did.  Measuring and planning purchases became an ingrained way of life, even after her children were grown and returned the love and protection they had received as children.   And so when Grannie Yeager gave me a graduation present, I knew it was not frivolous or without thought.  Like any valued treasure, I squirrelled away the towel for safekeeping.  Unused, it traveled with me to college, and after college.  From one home to another home.  The towel was not allowed to live up to its potential.  Then one day I realized, this protected and saved gift did not honor the intentions of the giver, the woman who never had disposable income to spend on a towel that would not be used.   After years of being stored in a “treasure box under the bed” the towel fulfilled its purpose.  As a serendipitous reminder, every time it came up in rotation, I thought of Grannie Yeager.   The blue towel with delicate white designs remained employed until worn so thin you could hold it up to the light and see through it.  Only then, did it earn rest in the treasure box.

This is my warning: if you gift me a treasure, do not expect to find it in a box under my bed.  I will not save, but I will savor.  Like Henry David Thoreau, “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.”  I choose to savor the sunset, time with friends, phone calls from my son, a too-big lap dog on my lap; I choose to savor your thoughtfulness and love.

So, Starving Little Henry, I will slowly and mindfully relish the Life Saver.  I will resist crunching it with my teeth.  I will find a quiet place in the woods or on the beach; I will think about you and savor sweetness.