Mother's Day (The Lunchbox)

I suppose I was nine or ten years old. And it seems silly now...

Growing up in Augusta, Ga., in the early days of desegregation I went to three or four different elementary schools. Every year or so the schools were rezoned to create more of a racial balance. Sometime it was close enough that I walked to school; sometimes I walked to and from a bus stop each day to get to school and back home.

I never was big on school lunch. I carried a metal lunch box to school with me. And everyday on the way home I would hunt for a gift for my mother to put in the lunchbox - a live lizard.

It was probably cruel (both to her and the lizard). I never remember anything that led me to believe that my mom liked lizards. (I'm pretty sure she didn't.) But lizards abounded in our part of Georgia and it became a routine. Sometimes it was a Green Anole (Anolis carolinensis) with a big neck fan. I liked the Five-lined Skink (Eumeces fasciatus) because its blue tail was pretty (I thought). Six-Lined Racerunner (Cnemidophorus sexlineatus) were common in the lunchbox. And there were always a few Ground Skinks (Scincella lateralis) around if I couldn't catch anything else.

In retrospect the lizards may not have been a great idea. Mom had had open heart surgery in 1968, a year or two earlier. But I never really understood then that her health was fragile. She'd always be there. How could it be different?

I'd come in from school. "I'm home!"

She'd be in the kitchen. I'd take my lunchbox in and sit it on the counter. I'd sit down at the kitchen table. She'd look at me.

"There's not anything in your lunchbox today, is there?" she'd ask.

"No," I'd say. Then I'd giggle like a girl and sit there and wait.

Eventually she'd open the lunchbox. The scared, confused skink would jump out and run around the kitchen. Mom would let out some audible startle response. I'd laugh; then I'd save her by chasing down that day's reptile and taking it outside. Day after day...

Somehow she still loved me.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom...