With Toads of Love

“With Toads of Love”

Dear Mother,

I know. When I call you mother, it means I’m about to share something serious. Yes, it’s code for, “I need your attention front and center.” So, do I have it? Ok, here goes.

I saw a baby toad in the garden today. I was planting the lilac trees and catnip that you bought for me a few weeks ago. Thank you for insisting on buying them for my birthday. You’re right. When I look at the plants, I smile, think of you, and remember that you said, “Oh bah, 50 is just a number!”

The toad. Its plump warty self was napping next to a rock I moved when digging the hole for the lilac. I burst into tears. Then I started giggling. Then I cried again, like we’re talking on all fours crying, with my garden-gloved hands digging into the soil, and my sweaty matted garden hair swinging spazzy like carwash clothes as I heaved and convulsed in tears. Good grief, is that a fifty years of age sighting or what?

When I snapped out of it, I knew I had to write to you. It’s been happening lately. A tsunami of childhood memories sweep over me and I’m left realized and raw, and I just want to sit with you, green tea in hand, and tell you all the secrecy-sealed things I did as a kid.

I looked at the toad through a salty regretful lens and I remembered the time we went for a rainy day hike up to Butterfly Peak. I was eight. I was ornery. I thought I was a forest faerie. I thought I belonged in the woods. I thought if I stayed way behind you, you’d forget about me and I could run away forever and live with the animals and other faeries I knew I’d eventually meet. Do you remember what a kerfuffle in your day I was? You kept slowing down waiting for me, and I slowed almost to a stop. At one point when we were both stopped, you looked at me, wordless, eyes piercing my orneriness for what felt like eons, and then you turned away and walked on. As if you knew I needed to be in my own world. I watched you walk away and then I looked down. I saw a little toad next to my right foot. I gasped, grateful I hadn’t stepped on it. Swept into my own world, I crouched down and picked up the toad, holding it gently in my left palm and grazing its warty back with my right hand.

“Where’s your mother, little toad?” I whispered as I held it as close to my face as I could. I peered into its eyes and I knew it needed to be in my world. I placed it gently into my raincoat pocket and started walking, you just yards ahead of me walking on without pause.

We hiked in silence, stepping carefully on wet rocks. The rain drizzled off and on, and at times I put my hand in my pocket to caress the little toad. As we crested the summit of the trail, you stood so still. You didn’t speak. You stared off into the distance.

“Did you put that little toad in your pocket?”

I stood still. I didn’t speak. I stared off into the distance.

“No.”

“It belongs in the woods with its family.”

“I didn’t take it.”

“Ok.”

Mother, I did. Perhaps it was maternal instincts. Perhaps you had turned around and saw the whole scene when I was fixated on sweeping the little toad into my world. I did. I took it. And you were right.

Through salty regretful lens I looked at the toad in my garden and knew I needed to confess. And I want you to know, I put the toad back where I found it as we descended the trail that day. Somewhere deep in the forest of my own world, your conscience spoke to mine. And for that, I am grateful.

Do you remember I got a wart on my thumb a year later? I didn’t know what karma was back then, but I knew the concept. I always thought that wart was the little toad’s way of saying, “Since you’ve lied to your mother, and in your pocket me you did smother, I’m leaving you with a warty bother.” In my own world, I thought I’d found myself in a fairytale with a vengeful toad. I never put an animal in my pocket again.

So, Mother, I am sorry I lied to you. From my conscience to yours, I hope you can forgive me. I also hope it clears the air, and that the wart on my nose goes away! Or maybe it’s a fifty years of age thing I’ll be stuck with.

With toads of love,

Veronica

I submitted this for the Mother's Day Confessions Challenge. Thanks for reading, and for considering a clicked heart, comment, Pledge and Tip if you so choose. See more of my writing and info about me here: Jessica Amber Barnum