mental notes

"They're mental to me!", he said.  

"You mean senti-mental?", I clarified.

"Uh huh.  I want to keep them for when you're dead".  

I tried to find the compliment in that and avoid the ugly truth.  One day I would be dead.  On the upside, he liked me enough to already be hanging onto little mementos, things to help him remember me.

Only moments before, blood curdling screams had ensued as he peered into the kitchen trash.

"WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!"  

Why did I do that?

I guess I thought they were junk, these crumbled up, scribbled on post it notes.  I don't really know why I threw them away when I cleaned out his lunch box this afternoon.  I just found a wad of paper scraps in a ziploc that had seen better days.  Looked like nothing of importance.  To be quite upfront, I barely recall writing these notes each day.  I just sort of do it.  It's become almost a mindless habit, but maybe not.  Maybe half awake, putting lunch pails into backpacks each morning and slipping in a little  message and sometimes a stick figured cartoon of he and I living out some fantasy is more then reminder of how I feel about my kids. It has seemed like just second nature, but maybe it's my nature, my true nature?  Maybe it's mindful and not mindless.  Whatever it is, he counts on it.  He holds onto them and it all matters to little him.  This tiny, two second effort apparently means a whole lot.  

So we sponged off the bits and globs of food and what-have-you that had sadly splattered across them while they lay in the garbage.  We spread the soggy little messages on the counter to dry.  I ran my fingers over them, I stared at them and then I took a photo.  Suddenly I wanted to remember something too.   I wanted to remember how wonderful it feels being the mother of an eight year old boy and a ten year old girl who also saves her mental/sentimenatal notes.  

"Will you always do that Mom, will you always write me these things?"    

"Count on it", I answered.  

Count on me to love you, even when I'm dead.