Black Hearts & Halloween
It’s no small feat to come up with bedtime stories for nine grandchildren. A tough crowd, for sure, they’re good at reminding me that it’s totally unacceptable to rely on any standard-issue fairy tale.
Tucking-in Scout, my six-year-old grandlittle, she planted her elfin hands on my face, squished my cheeks together and informed me that she expected to hear bedtime stories from my own childhood. Real stories.
“Nana, tell me something about when you were a little Guur-il.”
I loved the way she said, “Guur-il.”
Scouty sported a quirky accent, a result of her checkerboard upbringing. After her birth in Tennessee and toddlerhood in Australia surrounded by her African grandparents, it merged into an eclectic mix of three continents. It endeared me to her, though, inspiring me to dig deep into my memory banks for an authentic narrative. Hopefully with an ending where I, as the sagest of grandparents, could conclude, “And the moral of the story is…”
Careful not to taint my true tale with “Once Upon a Time," I took a deep breath and let the story tumble out.
“I remember the day I discovered my little black heart.
I dug it up along with a bag of Halloween candy.”
Her sleepy eyes widened.
“It was the day after Halloween and draped over my desk at school, I stared at the big wall clock that ticked SO SLOWLY toward the 3:00 bell. I was tired, but not from the night before. I was tired of sharing my candy with my brothers and sisters…some too young to trick-or-treat and some too old. It had to stop!
But this time I had fixed it. Never would I share again and the entire bag of treats would be mine.
All mine.
I hatched a plan.
I would bury the bag of candy in the back yard, safe from siblings’ hands and even my dad, who always asked if I would share the ginormous chocolate bar that the family with the swimming pool handed out.
The clock struck 3:00. I raced home from school, flying past the trash cans lining my street, knocking into others and sending Marmalade, the neighbor’s orange-striped cat, howling.
I beelined straight up the driveway to the patch of dirt behind the garage.
My secret stash of treasure was buried there.
I was all smiley thinking about my smart idea, but guess what I found when I dug it up?”
“The giant-normous chocolate candy bar?”
Scout didn’t miss a beat.
“Well that was in there all right, but so was my black heart.”
“Nana, what does a black heart look like?” I could see she was questioning my veracity.
“A black heart looks like a big bag of Halloween candy crawling with hundreds and thousands and zillions of ants. The whole bag moving with black bugs. I had to throw every piece of candy in the trash.
A black heart looks like being selfish and not sharing.”
Scout’s eyes searched mine and with a genuinely sad face, she asked, “Is that true, Nana? Did you really not want to share?”
I could tell she was surprised and disappointed with me. After all, my grandchildren were still young enough to believe that Nanas were all goodness and sparkles and never did the wrong thing.
“Yes, Scouty, that’s right. The best part, though, is that I figured out that being selfish caused this mess. I didn’t have to learn from anyone else. I saw it myself and I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the way being selfish made me feel.”
Every Halloween I remember this story and laugh. More importantly, I realize that this event counts as a pivotal lesson in my childhood. I never forgot its vivid lesson.
Somehow I felt like I had escaped something that could happen in my future if I didn’t change the way I was.
How good it is that life’s disappointments carry lessons along with them if we choose to look for them.
And that, you see, is the moral of the story.
PS Here’s two fall recipes for those days that hover between Indian summer and the chilly breath of fall. The salad is a solid crowd pleaser for showers or girl get-togethers and the squash soup suggests a seasonal classic with some sass.
PPS This singular Scripture haunted me. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” Proverbs 14:12