We were indulging in our traditional Sunday evening meal at La Potosina, joined as was customary by our son and his family.  Seated next to me was the infamous Wilson of gray road fame (kindly see my previous post) and across from me, his younger brother, the notoriously cute Anderson.  When their usual cheese quesadillas arrived, Wilson decided he was going to cut his into pieces all by himself.  Since the table knives at the restaurant are on the slightly dull side, it was deemed permissible for him to try . . . and try he did.  With a slight assist from his Mona (yes, I said Mona, as in Mona Lisa—not everybody can use that), he managed to slice/pull off two rather oddly shaped pieces before deciding this cutting business was harder than it looked and relinquishing the knife to his granny.

Now, we’ve known for some time that whatever Wilson does Anderson will insist upon trying, but for some reason that fact did not spring to mind when Wilson expressed his desire to exercise his independence.  And while Wilson managed to keep his quesadilla on the plate, Anderson’s slid in all directions, threatening to leap from the table and make a break for the floor at any moment.  Fine motor skills are not yet at his command and, after several minutes of breath holding and quesadilla adjusting, his daddy took the plate and sliced the quesadilla into five neatly sized pieces . . . much to Anderson’s dismay.  The entire time Joseph was cutting, Anderson was crying, “I do it!!  I do it!!” while standing ready with his knife in one hand and his fork in the other, but to no avail.  When at last the dastardly deed was done and the quesadilla placed in front of Anderson—who now had tears streaming down his cheeks and snot pouring from his nose—he laid down his knife and fork, picked up two pieces of the quesadilla and, holding them up to his daddy with the most pitiful look, said, “Fix it.”

It was such a simple request.  Fix it.  Put my quesadilla back together so I can cut it up.  Even though it will probably end up in the floor and you’ll have to order another one, fix it so I can, so I won’t be upset and unhappy anymore.  Fix it . . .

How many times have we wanted to look at someone—anyone—and beg them to “fix it”?  To make it all better.  To take away whatever pain we have, to wipe away the tears and remove the crushing ache that comes when our neatly ordered lives spiral out of control.  If we’re honest, there are more times than we care to count, and the things that are broken are always beyond fixing.  Like a quesadilla now sliced into manageable pieces, that part of our lives cannot be made whole again.

It took a while, but we finally managed to distract Anderson enough that the quesadilla became supper instead of a crisis.  Unfortunately, the weightier matters of life are never so simple and there are no easy “fixes” because those solutions are different for everyone—in other words, I don’t have any answers to offer.  But I do know this:  as long as we sit and stare at the problem—the broken pieces of our lives—and focus on what we have lost and of what we have been deprived, we will never be able to enjoy life.  That only happens when we begin to look outward, beyond ourselves and the trials and tribulations that afflict us.

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