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PrintGilding the Lily
Lily, left, and Macee.
Lucky me. A little girl named Lily has moved into the neighborhood. She’s 9 and has lots of girlfriends who come to play. They roller skate, bicycle, skip rope, wear matching headbands and have sleepovers. They are fonts of energy and good deeds.
One sunny Saturday, Lily and her friend Macee ran up my driveway with an announcement.
“We want to make a difference,” Lily said. “We want to raise money and give it to SPCA. We were going to wash everyone’s car in the neighborhood, but my dad said ‘No.’”
“Your dad’s smart,” I said.
“Then we were going to ride our bikes through the neighborhood with a sign that says we’ll wash everyone’s dog, but my dad said ‘No’ again.”
“Another smart decision.”
“So then we thought, ‘We’ll do chores for Connie!’”
Bingo.
They told me they were up for anything — any chore I didn’t want to do. They told me they were experienced gardeners and good at weeding, for example.
“How about sweeping out the garage?” I suggested.
“We can do that,” Lily said. “I volunteer at the Therapeutic Riding Center at Sand Springs. I sweep lots of stuff there. Even yucky stuff.”
The sweeping had barely begun when they decided the garage floor needed to be cleared. That meant me. I moved lawnmowers, dragged bags of soil and scooted storage boxes to give them a clear shot.
Then they spotted several things, such as Christmas decorations, that ought to be moved into the garage attic. They assured me they were strong and could do it.
“I don’t know,” I said. “This attic ladder is so narrow.”
“We’ll let Macee do it,” Lily said. “She’s little.”
“I’m afraid you’ll fall,” I said.
“That’s OK,” Lily said. “Macee is a gymnast. If she falls, she can nail a perfect landing. Like this, ‘Ta da!’”
So I climbed the narrow ladder to the attic, precariously hauling Christmas trees and boxes. They swept, but I got to be involved in this task, too.
“Hey, Connie. Do you have any trash bags?”
“Hey, Connie. Do you have a dustpan?”
Then we moved smartly to the weeding. My garden gloves came up to their elbows, like evening gloves. To protect their knees, I had one green, padded kneeler and one folded towel.
“I call the green kneeler,” Macee said. “Call” is equivalent to saying “dibs.”
“Do you have a banana?” Lily asked. “Because if you do, we can plant it near the rose bush and the roses will be beautiful. That’s what my mom does.”
We were all disappointed to learn that I had no banana.
“Do you have clippers?” Lily asked. “Because I’ll need to clip off these dandelion heads or they’ll spread. That’s what my mom does.”
Just before we plunged into weeding, Lily decided lunch was needed and went to place the order. Soon her mother arrived with two little plates.
They went inside and sat on the window seat to eat.
“Not too long now,” I joked. “You’re on the clock.” I chuckled.
They didn’t answer. They didn’t smile. They looked at me expressionless with huge blue eyes as they ate their sandwiches and carrot sticks in silence. Evidently 9-year-olds don’t joke about lunch. Neither do they chuckle.
Back in the garden, before weeding could begin, they applied more sunscreen and drank from their water bottles. They were scrupulous about avoiding sunburn and dehydration.
By then, however, they decided it was too hot to weed in the direct sun. A far better task would be raking leaves out of shady flowerbeds. This job was full of amazing discoveries.
“Hey, Connie. Come look. We found a whole family of roly-poly bugs.”
“Hey, Connie. Look what we got you,” Lily said with an outstretched hand. “Three worms!” Who wouldn’t be happy with that?
They couldn’t reach all of the leaves, they told me sadly. But they got almost all of them. Well, some of them. These, of course, had to be dealt with.
“Hey, Connie. Do you have a rake? Do you have any more plastic bags? Do you have a bigger dustpan?” We improvised with garbage pan lids.
Then someone arrived to take them swimming and they ran down the street.
Doing chores for a good cause can be exhausting.
I went inside to take a nap. I “call” the sofa.
