STEALING PUMPKINS

Georgia was tackling her fourth year of college.  Along with her heavy course load, she was deeply involved with choir, and found it necessary to spend thirty hours a week employed at the local grocery store.  Day after day, she drove back and forth between our home and school, a half hour commute, and as the months passed, her discouragement became increasingly more visible.

Every morning, she packed her stuff into my car and either frantically studied for a test or slumped into an extra thirty minutes of sleep.  Often she would not talk.  I tried to encourage her, exhort her and lift her spirits, but I was not always successful.  More often than not, I found myself working very hard to produce any semblance of a conversation.

One autumn day, dejected more than usual, she visited me in my office.  It was time for my famous speech, one which she had heard on many other occasions.  “This is the last chance you’ll ever have to live (insert day, month, date, and year).  You can never have it again.  Don’t waste it being depressed or angry or pouting.  You can’t ever have it again.  Do something fun or crazy or compassionate, at the least, memorable..  Don’t let it pass you by.”

This time, I added an ultimatum, something that I had never done before with this speech.  “When you leave here, you have until 11:30 to do something unforgettable, something enjoyable or daring.  If by the time we leave for home, you have nothing to report to me, we are going to steal a pumpkin from that field that we pass on the way home.”  I assured her that I meant it. 

When she joined me at the car, ready to leave for home, I asked her, “Well, what did you do?”  She quietly replied, “I jumped into a pile of leaves right where anyone could see me, and then laid down and threw them up into the air.”  Georgia is reserved.  It was a big step.

So, a tradition was begotten. “Steal a pumpkin” now had a significant meaning and I often reminded the kids, especially the girls, to do something to remember the day by. When Angela was rooming with one of her friends in a house in towards the city, she called one night, sorely discouraged because the young man in her life had not called. I encouraged her to let it go, to enjoy her girl friends, and to make the rest of the day special. It was 11:45 p.m. I told her that I expected her to “steal a pumpkin” so that she would never forget that she made it through a hard day and actually created a memory.

When I arrived at my office the next morning, voice mail was the first thing on the list. My very first message was from Angela, called in the night before. “Hi, Mom!” she was shouting, “it’s almost midnight and I am on my roof with my pajamas on singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’…here listen.” Sure enough, she was singing the rainbow song in the dead of night from the roof of her house. I was grateful that she had not called from jail! She had saved a crumby day!

We all talk about “stealing a pumpkin” now, when we need to remind each other not to let life steal a good 24 hours from us.  “Life is short,” I tell them.  One day it dawns on you that you’ve wasted a lot of days, and it’s just not worth it.  I want them to be able to look back and remember special happenings, crazy antics, deeds of kindness, victory over life’s worst.

Don’t ever be mistaken. Our enemy is a thief and a robber. He wants to steal our joy!