Grace Notes

After the eggs hit the wall

Nancy Kennedy

When I was a teen, a friend taught me how to make sand candles by digging a hole in damp sand as a mold, pouring hot wax into it and adding a wick.

My mom loved candles, so one day as a surprise for her, I put huge hunks of wax and red crayons in a pot on the stove to melt and got a box of damp sand ready for my soon-to-be waxen masterpiece.

I thought I knew what I was doing — until the wax got too hot and flashed into flames.

Panicked, I ran upstairs where Mom was taking a shower and, with faked calmness, asked through the door, “Um, how do you put out a fire on the stove?”

I don’t remember exactly what happened after that other than a lot of yelling and running and white powder (baking soda?) everywhere.

Later, in my attempt to make things right, I cleaned up all the white powder until all that was left was a pot of unusable red wax.

I poured that down the sink, then turned on the cold water.

Almost immediately, the washing machine started making a horrible groaning noise.

My mom called my dad and said, “Please come home NOW. Nancy —”

That’s all she needed to say. Ten minutes later my dad walked in with a huge wrench in his hand and I ran. I wasn’t sure if he was heading for the plumbing fiasco or for me!

The truth is, I am better at making messes than I am at fixing them.

Why do I keep thinking I can fix things myself when my “fixes” usually make things worse?

And not just with homemade candles gone wrong.

I remember a time when my husband and I went out to lunch. We had been fighting a lot and I made what I thought was an amusing comment about his menu choice, trying to break the tension.

It did not.

During our hour-long silent ride home, I kept my eyes on the clouds out the car window, wondering if God could — would — fix what I feared was irreparably broken.

Meanwhile, my husband kept changing the radio stations, looking for a football game.

When we got home, he went out to the back porch. I went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and took out a container of hard-boiled eggs.

Then I started hurling them with all my might, one after another, faster, harder, at the wall in our entry way, at the floor, at the front door.

With each egg I threw, I begged God to help me. To fix me. To fix the mess I was making in my marriage and generally with my whole life.

When I had splattered all the eggs, I saw my husband walking from the back of the house toward me.

I thought he was going to tell me he was leaving.

The situation we had been fighting about wasn’t going to change anytime soon.

So, I braced myself.

He took the container out of my hands and then held me as I cried.

“I’ll help you clean it up,” he said.

I'll never forget him picking up the broom and sweeping smashed hard-boiled eggs.

I can still see us kneeling together, washing and wiping and scrubbing the floor.

It was quiet.

It felt holy.

Contact Nancy Kennedy at 352-564-2927 (leave a message) or email at nkennedy@chronicleonline.com .

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