mindful monday : offer them a peppermunt from Holland
This is the 1000th post on 37days. To celebrate this nice big round number, I am posting an essay from one of my favorite writers, Amy McCracken.
It's all about offering a peppermunt from Holland, about loving, about mindfulness, about sitting quietly with a tin of mints in your lap to survive. It's about simply offering a peppermunt to someone who needs one, your hands wrapped around the tin with love and, perhaps, with anguish. When I read Amy's words, I was reminded of a line from Alban Berg's opera, Wozzeck: "Oh what is there to cling to?"
Would you like a mint? From Holland?
My brother traveled from Holland with a tin of Wilhelmina Peppermunts for Buddy. He gave them to Buddy upon arriving in Kenova for Petra's funeral. Buddy was 10. And someone everyone loved was dead. Not knowing what he could possibly say to throngs of grieving adults who were largely ignoring him, he started to offer everyone at the viewing a mint. "Would you like a peppermunt? From Holland?" His little hands were wrapped around the open tin as he made his way around and around the funeral parlor–eventually approaching the same people over and over, "Have you had a mint? Would you like another?"
He put the lid back on and sat with his mints in his lap the rest of the evening.
Late that night, Buddy started crying for the first time since learning about Petra's death. He was inconsolable. When he settled down enough to finally speak, he said this, "My mints! My mints! I left my mints! I need my mints!".
Paul went to Rollins Funeral Home over on 17th Street. Lucy Rollins lived there in a small second floor apartment. He must have woke her. She must have let him in. He came back with the Wilhelmina Peppermunt tin for Buddy.
Buddy slept.
With his mints.
We all slept.
Paul's night journey must have served two purposes. When I got back to Rollins' early the next morning there was a chair that had been pulled over and placed right at the head of Petra's casket. Paul must have sat with her a little while.
People started arriving for day two. Buddy offered them all mints.
Sometimes, we don't know what to say or do in the face of confusing and sad situations. And we cling to things that bring us comfort. Like mints from Holland.
It killed me to hear you say that you just didn't want to be you this morning. I knew that you would stop talking at some point and say, "Okay. You go. Your turn".
I wanted to say, "Would you like a mint? From Holland?" and make everything okay for you. I love you.
