The Gummy Lump

Has anyone else read the book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, by Robert Fulghum? This is one of top 5 favorite books of all time. He labels it "uncommon thoughts on common things." It's fabulous and an easy read. One of my favorite stories of his is The Gummy Lump. Here is an exerpt:

What I’m talking about here is something I think of as the gummy lump. Once it was a shoebox, decorated and given to me by the oldest child. Then it became a repository of other relics of childhood given to me by the younger children. The shoebox became my treasure chest in time…. Anyhow, this shoebox isn’t looking too very good now. It’s a little shriveled and kind of moldy where the jelly beans and gumdrops have run together. It’s still sticky in places, and most of it is more beige than red and white. If you lift the lid, however, you will begin to know what makes me keep it. On folded and faded and fragile pieces of large-lined school paper, there are words: “Hi daddi” and “Hoppy valimtime” and “I lov you”…. Glued to the bottom of the box are twenty-three X’s and O’s made out of macaroni. I’ve counted them more than once…. The treasures of King Tut are nothing in the face of this. Have you got something around the house like a gummy lump? Evidence of love in its most uncomplicated and most trustworthy state? You may live a long, long time. You may receive gifts of great value and beauty. You may experience much love. But you will never believe in it quite as much as you believe in the gummy lump. It makes your world go round and the ride worth the trouble.

Isn't that beautiful? I love his writing. Anyway, last week when I picked up Sydney from school I got my first little "gummy lump" something. Here it is.


I have to admit I got kind of choked up when I first saw it. Right there in front of the other mom's, too, so I had to kind of hide it. It's certainly not the first piece of art that Sydney has brought home from school, or the biggest. But for some reason, this one really hit me. My first mother's day school art project from my baby. And I love it. I will keep it FOREVER, too. Just watch.

By the way. Robert Fulghum's website is full of his really funny journal entries. I especially enjoyed his review on the royal wedding, which you can read here.

And I have another sweet little gummy lump story. Actually, it's not even my own. My friend Heather has a nasty, ratty, torn-up pillow that I call her gummy lump. I call it that because it actually looks like a gummy lump. When she was little, her parents took half the stuffing from her mom's pillow and half from her dad's pillow and made her her own little pillow. All these years later, she still uses it. Every night. And it is GROSS looking and horrifying to me but she can't sleep without it and it's kind of cute. To her, it's her parent's love all rolled up together in a pillow. Disgustingly sweet.