Tinfoil Cranes

August 6, 2015

Written by Marykate O’Malley, mother of three wonderful children, Gladwyne PA

“I am with people at the beginning of their life, and the end of their life,” she said. We sat at my kitchen table, drinking our respective coffee and tea. My old dear friend, and music therapist who works with hospice, and writes and performs for young children. An old friend. Old like ancient hymns sung at mass, old like a weathered sailboat with bleached canvas sails, like an old lighthouse who says nothing but shines that steady light, again and again, knowing she may help someone. “It’s hard to explain but they are the same. They are truly present. They aren’t fancy. They are peaceful.”

And earlier that day in the car ride home from riding lessons, a sibling conflict I consciously let ride out as we rode over the lush green hills of the Brandywine Valley. Past horse farms, and battlefields where George Washington and his troops suffered a heavy loss but never lost their spirit. We picnicked with Grandmom at a grouping of tables with a white canvas canopy stretched across the top, a shield from the summer sun. This open plot by the museum, where we lost a gift from my Mom, and found it again stopping on the way home. I retraced our steps, and asked a family as they were packing up from their lunch, “did you see a”… and then in the gift shop, “did anyone drop off”… And walking to the car, preparing for my delivery, I hear a voice call “wait is this it?” An older man with silver hair holding the small black leather bag. “I was walking and saw it lying here”. I take it with profuse thanks, and a bit of awe that it was found.

Back at home the argument lulls, heats up again, and then the crescendo. My son sullen in the room upstairs. Our friends downstairs. I speak to him, we talk about feelings, how I am glad he is getting it out, saying how he feels. I listen, and listen, and listen. And talk, and talk, and talk. But the mood remains and hovers over him like a small rain cloud heavy with emotion but not releasing. I give him space, and retreat. A few minutes later my youngest comes down and requests tinfoil. Curious but distracted, I hand it to her and start a salad. And a short while later I hear laughter and chatter drifting down the stairs.

As I enter the door to his room, my son hands me a tinfoil crane and exclaims, “here Mom, this is for you!” A crane fashioned and twisted, pulled and pressed until it forms a perfect shape with beak, feathers, head, and tail. Like Michangelo, “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” Every detail and nuance accounted for. Later that evening, I ask my daughter what she did to lift the mood. The mood I could not move despite my effort to push it away. She replied simply, and cheerfully, “I thought – what would make him happy. Then I looked around his room and saw all the paper cranes he made. So I asked him if he wanted to make them together, but with tinfoil. And he did!”

And my wish became this – to live my life in the space between the beginning and the end as not fancy and truly present. Simply and peacefully so I notice the small leather bag dropped in the grass and remember that all someone truly needs at times isn’t listening, or words, but doing what makes them happy, together.