Payback

When I was in First Grade, my Mom would come and pick me and a friend up from school.  Not really out of the ordinary, but one day, we had been learning about the Presidents in class.  When Stacy & I piled into Mom's car, we started our daily chat of how our day went.  At one point, I looked at my mom (who, by the way, was much younger than I am now) and asked her if she knew George Washington.  I didn't mean did she learn about him, I wanted to know if she had ever met him.  I don't remember my  mom's response, but I do remember that she laughed and looked shocked at the same time. 

Fast forward 30 years and I'm the mom taking the Kindergartener home.  Brooke and I were talking about our day and after a pause she said, "Mommy, were you alive when Martin Luther King Jr. was alive?"  Certainly not the same as my asking my 20 something year old mother if she had met George Washington, but still.  I'm quite certain I had the same shocked look and same laughter.  I told her no, that I wasn't alive when he was alive.  But I couldn't stop laughing.

In the next moment, I had the strongest urge to call Mom and tell her the story and hear her laugh again.  I would have given anything to hear that laugh.  I am certain she was, at that moment, up in Heaven hysterically laughing at the payback I'd just received.