c. Lessons learned

Some people think that we are on this earth to learn 'lessons'.

Not lessons about capital cities and maths formulas.  Thank God!  My memory is not particularly good and my interest in those rote-learning topics is non-existent.

The lessons we learn relate to the more complex and difficult ‘life-lessons’ for personal growth and the getting of wisdom:  Compassion, kindness, helping, love, tolerance, patience - for others and for ourselves.  In these lessons we learn how to find happiness and contentment.  No lottery wins necessary.

Primary schools in Australia are also trying to teach children lessons related to life-skills - separate to facts and figures - which might help them find success and happiness in their lives. These include the five ‘keys’: Confidence, persistence, getting along with others, resilience, and organisation.

Last night, as I was driving my seven year old son, Ollie, home from school he learned a little about one of these life-skill lessons: Organisation.  And he learned another thing - which I am already fully aware of through my own extensive experience in ‘lessons learned’ - learning lessons is painful!

Negotiating the busy 4pm traffic, I was vaguely listening to Ollie who was sitting in the back seat of the car emptying papers and books and other ‘stuff’ from his school-bag.

He was chatting to himself - or possibly me - as he extracted each item.  He’s recently learned to read, so for him reading is still such a novelty he reads everything he can: street-signs, shop-signs, cereal-boxes … anything.  On this occasion he was reading each school news-letter as he pulled it from his bag. As his voice filtered through my busy thoughts I became aware of a word I wasn’t expecting: ‘Bowling,’ he said.

‘Bowling?’ I ask. ‘What bowling?  Are you going bowling with the school?’

He reads on.  ‘There’s numbers … 210816 -’

‘That was last Sunday! The 21st of August 2016! Is that a birthday invitation, Ollie?!’

He hesitates. ‘There’s more numbers, Mum … 100816 -’

‘Ollie!  That’s the RSVP date! The 10th of August 2016. Weeks ago. You missed the birthday party!  Did you leave that invitation in your drawer at school?’  

Ollie is silent.  I know he's upset.

I am aware, through lessons learned with my older three children, that seven year olds can leave birthday-invitations at the bottom of school bags for months. Eventually these are retrieved at the end of the school-year when school-bags are emptied and cleaned out before the next school-year.  Usually the old news-letters and invitations to the long-forgotten-never-replied-to-or-gone-to-birthday-parties have biscuit crumbs and squished banana all over them; they are screwed up and torn; and they often contain information which explains all the subsequent chaos and disappointment and urgent phone calls from teachers and other parents which followed during the year.  All too late.

For this reason, I make it a habit of mine to check my primary-school aged children’s school-bags at the end of each week.  I look for old forgotten fruit (before it starts to ferment and turn black), uneaten sandwiches (before they go mouldy and turn green), and forgotten newsletters and birthday invitations (before chaos and tears follow). 

So, now I can’t understand how this invitation got missed.

Ollie then explains:  ‘I put it in the front pocket of my bag, Mum.  The ‘secret’ front pocket.’

‘Who was the invitation from?’ I ask.

‘Tasha.  He’s my good friend.’

I hear him quietly sniffing and sighing.

‘Well, we’ll buy him a birthday-present anyway,’ I say consoling him and a little upset that little Tasha was probably hurt when Ollie didn’t go to his birthday-party, or even reply. ‘I can get him some Lego when I go shopping tonight. And a card. You can say “sorry”. You can tell him you “accidentally” left the invitation in your bag.’

Ollie doesn’t reply.

‘Ollie, that’s just a lesson you’ve learned. From now on -’

‘I don’t like lessons,’ he says softly.  I know he’s hurt. Especially the part where he thinks he’s disappointed his friend.

‘I know,’ I say gently. ‘Lessons hurt.’

‘That lesson is even worser than the ‘other’ kind of lesson.’

‘What other kind of lesson?’

‘You know.  When rough kids say “I’m gonna teach you a lesson.”

‘You mean it hurts more than getting punched?’

‘Yes.’

‘I know, dear.  I don’t like learning lessons either.  But the fact they hurt us helps us to remember them and learn from them.  We need to make mistakes to learn.  But they hurt … a lot.  I know.’

And I do know.  I was only recently thinking of the many painful lessons I’ve learned in my life.  Some of those lessons took years to learn and endure.

So, my seven year old son has learned something else today:  Life is filled with painful lessons.

But, I can say - after decades of living through so many life-lessons - once they pass and all is right again with the world … or as right as it’s going to get … we are often glad those lessons happened.  They bring ‘wisdom’ to us.  We learn to sail through life’s violent waves more capably because of them. Through future storms. And, we learn to more fully appreciate the good times: The peace and love and sunshine in our lives.

Ollie cheered up a lot when we worked out how he could try to mend the feelings of a friend he had inadvertently hurt. And I became aware that he had mostly been upset about hurting his friend’s feelings - rather than missing the cake or bowling.

So, while Ollie might need another decade or ten to master the school lesson of ‘organisation’, he seems to have come a long way in mastering the life-lessons of kindness, love, and compassion. 

And those are wonderful lessons to have learned.