Every morning, I make oatmeal for Steve.
Not some mornings. Every morning.
I have easily made oatmeal 700 times in the past two years. It’s one of the few things he’s still able to swallow easily and though it’s typically a healthy breakfast, I load it up with brown sugar and butter and half and half, trying to keep Steve’s weight from sinking.
Can I be very transparent and tell you that I loathe oatmeal? Not because I make it so often, just because the texture makes it seem pre-eaten or something. However, if I’m being totally honest, I don’t always enjoy the making of it either. Sometimes I resent the extra chore in an already-full morning. Sometimes, I forget to make it until I’m already late for work and then I’m running around, banging cupboard doors and spilling brown sugar on the floor and wishing for all the world that I had a Fairy Godmother.
But I’ve also had some really sacred moments while holding that box of Quaker Oats. It may sound crazy, but this is what I’m thinking: no matter what happens, no matter where the future goes and regardless of what I do or don’t accomplish in this life, at least I’ll know I did one thing every day that blessed and sustained my sweetest friend. I’ve gotten a lot of things really wrong over the course of our battle with this disease, but maybe I got this one small thing right. And maybe a small thing, done with love hundreds of times, ends up being a pretty substantial something .
I suppose, ultimately, the shift taking place in my thinking is this: what if the little “necessaries” we do every day as we push towards achieving our dreams or finding our purpose or changing the world…what if these micro-blessings like writing the school lunch checks and calling your grandma in DesMoines and picking up your husbands socks for the bajillionth time and forgiving your son for being late again…what if they’re really the big things after all? Perhaps the sheer force of their annoyingly repetitive nature gives them a weightiness that lets love sink in deep. And, love? Is everything.
So, I’m starting to cozy up to the idea that maybe -at the end of all this – my tombstone will read: Here lies Bo Stern. Her oatmeal changed the world.
Wouldn’t that be something?
Seeing with new eyes,
Bo
UPDATE: 1/7/15 – It’s been ten months since Steve ate oatmeal (or any food.) I miss this small thing more than I ever could have dreamed when I wrote this post. Would you do me a favor today and plan to share a meal with someone you love? Say intentional words. Eat your favorite food. Live for an hour or two in the wonder of God’s gift of enjoying food together. That’s all.
So true. I have had similar thoughts towards the future while raising my teenagers. Someday the little things will be the big, meaningful things.
Bo,
I made oatmeal day after day, month after month for my grandpa as he was ailing in our home when I was a teenager. I can’t stand oatmeal but now every time I see it and every time someone eats it, I’m reminded of his thankful face and his love for me. It is the little things!
Awww, Bo, I love you guys! Blessings on you both. You might like oatmeal if you make it like us. Oatmeal, peanut butter, brown sugar, ovalteen, & milk. Think No-bake Cookies. Have a blessed day! <3
Love it!! Making me think. maybe the small things matter most!!
Ann voskamp s book One Thousand Gifts spells this out with quite a powerful anointing!! Love this and all the little things that are Gods gifts…..THANKFUL for oatmeal, Saturday pancakes, homework, wet towels, and all the things that make every day real……and really sweet! I would love to taste your oatmeal!!
Doing my 1,000 gifts. In fact, I had just added to the list right before reading the blog. 🙂
Thank you for reminding me of the value of little things. Especially since you are capable of a lot
bigger things.
Your eyes are beautiful Bo.
When all those little things that feel like big things are all grown up now (raising our children, etc)….we look back on all those times and we really miss them, and wish we could go back and do it all over again and make it last just a little bit longer!
It’s the small things I remember……
Thanks for the reminder that those small things we do for those we love are sometimes the most important way to show we care.
Bo, make extra and put it in the fridge. Microwave the next day. Keeps for three days. I put raisins and butter in mine.