Read, Forrest, Read!

I caught pieces of Forrest Gump three nights in a row as I channel surfed (my life is soooooo full of thrills!). Last night I watched the scene where Forrest is talking to Jenny's grave. He places a note from their son on her grave telling her he hasn't read it because he isn't supposed to.

Man, I'm telling you. That scene is sappy sweet, Forrest so innocent, Jenny's grave so lovingly tended. But the whole not reading the note thing? Well screw that! Had that been me, I'd have not only read my son's note, I may have kept a copy.

I have a stash of notes The Boy has written me over the years. He's like me in that he seems to like expressing his emotions in writing at times rather than verbally. I try to remember to write the date on the corner of each note, so I can more clearly remember the whens of them. Those things I cherish. Those notes. I always will.

There used to be a pile of notes on the shelf in our laundry room from his high school years. Wendy would find them in his pockets while doing his laundry. They painted a fascinating snapshot of his high school life. Girls wrote the most interesting and revealing things! For the record, teenage girls are scary. S-C-A-R-Y!

Was it eavesdropping to read them? I don't think so. In my opinion, laundry notes were fair game. As were others he'd leave on his desktop or on the floor or in the bathroom. Eminent domain or something like that. It was a viable means of keeping track of things.

When Wendy and were moving his stuff last month, we came across a neatly organized stack messy bag filled with paperwork from the previous year. I could see personal notes interspersed with the musical scores, assignments, books and other detritus. With real evidence of maturity and parental "letting go," I did not reach into the bag and pull out those personal notes. I just put the bag in the closet.

Reading his notes now would be wrong, but back then I called it responsible parenting. Not to mention fun.

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