Gracey's Space

Monday, October 30, 2006

My parents always complain how I never remember anything from when I was a child. I do however have memories from childhood, some good, funny, loving, tearful and fearful memories. There are many memories I believe in each person that stir up different emotions from their childhood. One in particular that comes to surface at times is the story of when I deliberately disobeyed my dad and did pay the consequences for my actions, but it was not the punishment of a spanking or having something very important taken away from me. No, it was much more painful than that.

Dad did a lot of carpentry type of work around the house and on the side of our house we had a fenced in area that contained scrap wood and different types of piles of wood. In many of those piles there were wooden planks that had nails sticking out of them. I was forewarned numerous times not to play on the side of house. Did I listen? Of course not. My brother and I decided we were going to have some fun in our backyard and the temptation of the wood piled high was too much for us to resist. I was a bit of a tomboy, so if my brother wanted to play army, I was totally up for it.

There was another aspect of my tomboyish streak--being barefoot. I hated shoes and if I could get away with being barefoot, I would take every opportunity to do so. I remember my mom always telling me that I needed to put shoes on, but if I could sneak out the door to play without them on that was what I would most definitely do. As you can imagine, this day of playing army in the backyard was no different for me. We first looked into the kitchen window to see if mom was around and when we saw that the coast was clear, we opened the fence that led to that forbidden land. It was great fun climbing up on the wood piles and the thought of us being able to pull a fast one on our parents was thrilling. The thrill lasted until the inevitable happened--my right foot stepped completely into an old, rusty nail. Oh, the agony! I didn't just puncture my foot; I had a nail sticking out of my foot! I must have let out a blood curdling scream because my mom was there like a flash of light.

The next thing I remember was my dad taking me to the emergency room and they dipped my foot in a rust-colored liquid, numbed my foot, and pulled that nail out. The prospect of having the nail taken out of my foot did not frighten me nearly enough as the prospect of what my punishment was going to be for directly disobeying my dad's warning of not playing on the side of the house. The whole ride home I was waiting, dreading, anxious to hear what my dad had to say to me. He didn't say a word; he just drove in silence. The whole time I was thinking, "Man, he must be really mad!"

As we drove down the road, he suddenly turned into a parking lot and parked right in front of an ice cream shop. What torture! He was going to get an ice cream for himself and not let me have one because of my disobedience. This was worse than getting yelled at I was thinking. As he turned off the ignition, he turned and looked at me and said, "We both know you directly disobeyed me and your mom. Do you realize why I told you and Will not to play back there? I did it for your safety not because I didn't want you to have fun. Because you didn't listen to our instructions, you got seriously hurt and now you are in pain." "As we were driving to and from the hospital, I was thinking is this punishment enough for her or do I need to add something to it for her disobedience." (The whole time I'm thinking...."Oh God, here it comes; I'm getting grounded or spanked when I get home." )

I couldn't believe my ears when my father said, "No, I think you have gone through enough to have learned your lesson. That is all I'm going to say about it. Now, let's go get us some ice cream."

I did in fact learn my lesson, and I never ever went back to the side of the house unsupervised or barefoot again!!! But, the real memory that sticks out in my mind is not the fact that a nail went through my foot, but that my dad who was a man that did not let us get away with disobedience, had compassion on me that day. Now as an adult, I look back at that and it reminds me of God's compassion on us when we do something that we know we should not be doing. Sometimes God "reprimands" us and we have to face additional consequences for what we have done, but there are also times when we suffer the normal consequences of our disobedience. We have learned our lesson from that disobedience and truly are sorry for the disappointment we have caused. And this is when God looks compassionately on us and just as my dad said that day, God says, "You know what you have done and now you are in pain for your wrongdoing. I didn't want you to do that because I knew you would get hurt in the end. You have been through enough; the slate is clean again. It is forgotten and will not be mentioned again."

That day long ago I knew I deserved to get further punishment for not obeying my parents instructions, but my dad taught me a lesson on compassion and he probably didn't even know he was doing it.

posted by Gracey at Monday, October 30, 2006 -

4 Comments:

At 10/30/2006 10:00 AM, Anonymous said…

Gracey

See? I knew we were right for each other. I always felt that there was a deep subconscious bond that connected us, but I never knew what it was...now I know what it was...you playing soldier as a kid, me playing soldier now... meant to be!

Nail in the foot? You deserve a purple heart medal for that, but ice cream is a good substitute!

- Jeremy
At 10/30/2006 5:56 PM, Gracey said…

Yes, Dad is really a big teddy bear even though he can growl like a grizzly at times. :) He did the best he knew how in raising us and I don't think he did too bad of a job if I may say so myself (even though I was such a little brat). I definitely had a rebellious streak in me but I think he tamed it for the most part...he he
At 10/31/2006 2:06 AM, Jay said…

That's really a beautiful story, but even more beautiful that you can honour your father in this way.
At 10/31/2006 6:12 AM, Tink said…

Great story/memory!

I love the line, "What torture! He was going to get an ice cream for himself and not let me have one because of my disobedience." That's exactly how I remember thinking as a kid lol.