What Is It?

My object lesson this Monday is a dangerous choice. I should know better, but I’m going with it anyway. It is a worn stone drink coaster with a printed quote from Dylan Thomas. Normally, a household item with a Welsh poet’s verse doesn’t affect me. But, lately, almost everything cracks open my fragile emotional core. And this coaster hits me hard. I’m fighting back tears as I type this so forgive any typos. The screen gets blurry when I well up.

What is so special about an old drink coaster?

Many moons ago when I was a young mom shuffling Griffin and Gillian to elementary school, I came to cherish afternoon car line pick-up. Slowly, I’d inch my gold minivan toward the school’s entrance where the kiddos would hop into the van. Sweaty, tired or overexcited – depending on the kind of day they had – Grif and Gilly would share their latest adventures of school. I usually took the long way home so not to miss a minute of their daily recap.
One day before Christmas break, the children were barely inside the van before they wanted to show me their purchases they made at the school’s annual gift store fundraiser. Every student had a chance to buy a small item to give to someone over the holidays. Expenses were capped at five dollars. I gave my son and daughter five dollars assuming they’d buy something for each other or a friend. Barely buckled into their car seats, both handed me their selections proclaiming they were for me. Gilly had chosen a jewelry ring holder and Griffin gave me a stone drink coaster with a quote from Winston Churchill, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
My kids knew me well: jewelry and one of my favorite historical leaders!
Both gifts held prime real estate in my home. I placed the coaster on my writing desk and the jewelry dish on my bedside table. One night, I dropped the coaster breaking it into pieces. I was heartbroken. I looked online to see if I could order a new one to no avail.
A few months later when I picked up the children from school, Gilly excitedly announced she won the second grade writing award. But, she was most excited about what came with this honor.
Her prize? I kid you not: A stone coaster with a quote, this time from Dylan Thomas. “What I like to do is treat words as a craftsman does his wood or stone, to hew, carve, mold, polish, and plane them into figures of sound expressing lyrical impulses.”
Lovely.
“Mama, I want you to have it since you lost the one Grif gave you,” Gilly said as she handed it to me. Both kids nodded, looking pleased with Gilly’s decision as though they had held a high level summit earlier at the playground to determine the outcome.

Where Do I Keep It?

Today, the Dylan Thomas Replacement Coaster is on my writing desk in our latest rental home. The backside of the coaster has an inscription in Sharpie bold black ink – “Gillian Mangan, Best Writing Award, 2nd Grade, 3-16-05.”
There’s a graduation announcement next to the coaster. It has a photo of a beautiful young woman who used to jump in my van and tell me about her day in elementary school. She chose a Jane Austen quote for her announcement – “Completely and perfectly and incandescently happy.”
In four weeks, Gilly will graduate from high school and, two weeks after, she boards a plane to Mexico to study abroad for the summer as part of her university scholarship. Griffin recently completed his sophomore year in college and weighing summer job options either at home or where he attends college.
I could very well experience my first summer without having my children at home. I’m not handling it well. I thought I had more time. Gilly will have just graduated from high school for goodness sake! I cry easily, often and badly – no soft tears for me; they pour out like the liquid bullets of a crying face emoji.
Yet, I realize this is a part of our lives where one chapter ends and another begins. My daughter is incandescently happy and I’m unbearably weepy.
In time, I’ll stop crying.
I hope.
And I’ll look at the stone coaster on my desk grateful that some of the best trips of my life were less than a mile long in a minivan full of adventure, love and unexpected gifts.