Lessons in Labor Day

Wanna know how big crawdads can grow to be?

That would be really, reality, really,
REALLY
big.

This one was a smidgen larger than the size of Copper's foot, which is not a small article.

We went to the river innocently enough this afternoon. It was Copper's idea. There were a fair amount of people who also chose to spend their holiday afternoon hanging out at river's edge. Which surprised me. Not only because the ocean is just down the road and that seems the more obvious choice location for apending a water-themed day. But primarily because, as we live in California~which~has~not~seen~a~lick~of~rain~in~who~knows~how~long, this river has been reduced to not much more than a trickle by this late in the summer. But since have two small children who gleefully try to fish in the puddles left on our driveway after the morning lawn sprinklers finish spraying... of we go.

Today is Labor Day, for those not paying attention or tuning in from Canada or the Netherlands or Pluto (who no doubt got up by 4:30 a.m. this morning to watch the sun rise), which is a holiday that has managed to elude me in meaning and practical purpose since I was young. Are we celebrating American workers by slacking off all day? Do we celebrate productivity by doing as little as possible? Should we engage our neighbors in backyard BBQ's - those same people we have never really met until this point because we spend so doggone much time away from our home every day, working? What is Labor Day supposed to be about? On these things I am confused.

Or was.

Our journey to the river seemed appropriate today (to Copper, that is - I wanted to paint the baseboards, an idea that was met with rolled eyes and commentary including the phrase "stick in the mud"), so I relented and off we set with both kids in tow. In heat that would easily rival the sun in July.

Once there, we were innocently wading, when along came Mr. Crawdad. In the possession of two darling boys who resembled a Rockwell tableau: rolled up overalls with no shirts, straw hats, freckled noses, big grins, and sandy wet hair. They came proudly bearing the plastic bucket of water in which was nonchalantly floating the absolute mother of all crawdads. If the kids' account is to be believed (and, really, who am I to doubt such a fantastical tale?) the act of wrestling this bad boy out of the water with their bare hands was nothing short of an act of survival. It was Wild Kingdom worthy. Kill or be killed. The victors caught their prey and tossed him in a bucket for ample rounds of Labor~Day~River~Goers Show & Tell. Which is quite a heady thing when you are a boy. And you are eight.

The victorious kids were planning to release their trophy crawdad shortly. Out of respect, they told me solemnly.

I don't blame them. I would not have allowed that gigantic thing near my house for fear it would eat me. I'd respect that dynamic enough to drop it back in the river before I exit stage left, too.

We were impressed. My children especially.

As we left the river, my sweet LaLa, in her honeyed, high-pitched, jubilant voice, praised the boys and set me straight on a few things.

"Those were such kind boys for showing us her their HU-U-UGE crawdad. That was such a treat, huh Mom? They didn't just TELL me about their crawdad with their words, Mom, they showed it to me. We got to see it with our eyes! They were such nice, sweet boys. They must know Jesus in their hearts. And wasn't he the most handsome crawdad we have ever seen?"

"Yes", I agreed, "I especially appreciated the way his eyes bulged out like that. Definitely a special feature." (please forgive the heat~induced sarcasm. By this time, the sun had actually fused my hat and hair together into one big pulsating lava flow on my head)

"But Mom", she lamented, "that is just what crawdads DO!"

Ah, see. I had no idea what crawdads do. I got a bit distracted by this creature whose size rivaled my neighbor's chiuhuaha. But my daughter set me straight. Now I know. That is just what Crawdads DO.

See, I was, until that very moment, tempted to anchor myself in my own grouchy opinion that hanging out under intense sun, drenched in itchy sweat from your eyebrows to your sacrum, admiring captured creatures much too large and prehistoric looking to be floating around in a small river, was not the ideal way to spend a Labor Day. The process of trudging over dirt and rocks to get to a trickling river under whose mossy edges apparently reside mutant, titanic crawdads was not my idea of a grand ol' time. It sounded fairly lame to me, certainly a distant contender to my stellar painting~the~baseboards plan.

That was PRIOR to actually doing it. I found myself in love with watching my children enjoy such simple, luxurious pleasures as spending time with their parents splashing around in water and catching tadpoles. I needed to learn that, apparently, like crawdads, this is what we DO on Labor Day. My beautiful, sensitive, wise, precious daughter taught me this lesson today at the river.

Labor Day became meaningful to me for the first time in my life today. It suddenly became entirely about my children. Because Labor Day should celebrate our lives. What is most important to us ~ our purpose ~ what we do all this occupational labor FOR. It should honor the choices we make, how we spend our time, and what we focus our energy on. It should be about pausing to reflect on how critical it is that we choose to invest our finite lives so that our labor continues to bear fruit beyond our own experience on this earth.

In the hearts and minds and lives of our children.

Somehow, the biggest lessons of my life are always wrapped in unexpected, unassuming packages. This incredbly vital one came by way of my daughter. And one rather obscenely large crawdad.