September 6: A Lollipop, Measure of Our Days, Some Kind of Syrup

There were diffident raps on the factory window.  Derby was out there, having seen all.  He wanted some syrup, too.  

So Billy made a lollipop for him.  He opened the window.  He stuck the lollipop into poor old Derby's mouth.  A moment passed, and then Derby burst into tears.  Billy closed the window and hid the sticky spoon.  Somebody was coming.

Billy and Edgar Derby are in an extreme circumstance.  They're prisoners of war.  Pleasure is in short supply in their day-to-day.  They're not even sure they will be alive in 24 hours.  Good food is a memory for them.  So, a lollipop of syrup is enough to reduce Derby to tears and make Billy's body convulse with joy.  Small pleasures.

I think most people are sort of like Edgar and Billy.  We all go through life, doing what's expected.  Register patients for surgery.  Teach college freshmen what a sentence fragment is.  Shuttle kids to doctor appointments.  That's the measure of our days.  One obligation after another.

Yet, every once in a while, a lollipop is given to us.  Something so sweet and unexpected that it breaks your heart open, reminds you how good your life really is.  Yesterday, it was a piece of chicken parmesan.  Today, it was a blueberry doughnut.  Of course, it doesn't always have to be food.  On Sunday, my lollipop was my daughter saying to me, "Thanks for being such a chill dad."

However, the moment is just that--a moment.  It comes and goes.  Yet, it's those lollipops that make it possible to put up with the other crap of the day.  The work.  The exhaustion.  The late nights.  A mouthful of some kind a syrup goes a long way, if you get my meaning.

Tonight, Saint Marty is thankful for the sweet silence of his office.