At age 6, grandson came home from school with a pizza box. He and his mother lived with us at the time and while he attended school he brought home homework, worksheets and projects that we worked on at the kitchen table or the living room floor.
“What is this all about?” I asked him focused on the pizza box when he pulled out his latest assignment.
“It’s our Martin Luther King project,” he announced. “We have to turn it in on homework day.”
I was amazed at such an undertaking for first graders and smiled with the knowledge that he was attending a good school.
“We have to write on these sheets of paper and answer the questions.”
So he cut out the pizza slices while Grandma pulled down the encyclopedia and bookmarked pages on the internet. He found the information he needed to answer and picked out interesting facts he wanted to say. Since his mother is a single mom, his “First interesting fact…” tugs at my heart.
Even with the impending move, the downsizing and the sorting of this and that, I have kept it over the years. He and his mother have moved back to TX. So while his mother is at work today and he has a day off, he and I will open the pizza box to see what’s inside and remember.
This is what he learned then and will be reminded of today.
But there’s more I want him to know in time.
1. I want him to grow into the knowledge that MLK made inroads for single moms, women’s rights, those who need an advocate.
2. I want to tell him I remember watching MLK’s “I have a dream speech” broadcast on television. I want to tell him that I knew then, at age 13, I was listening to something historic and witnessing history. I want to ask him, “Have you heard someone say something, that in your heart you know is right and it gave you goosebumps?”
3. I want to share with him that I had spent young years in deep East TX and Alabama. Watching the news about Martin Luther King through a cathode tube put me in touch with a world outside of mine. My Southern world was one where “colored water” was served up in water fountains, where every table at a restaurant had “reserved” signs placed on the tables, where I could not share I was born in Mexico.
I don’t think I can cover all of this with him today, but in time there are enough things to serve up and digest for years to come.
As a matter of fact, I think I will place this box among the holiday decorations, so it doesn’t get lost, pitched or forgotten. I think we’ll be having pizza for dinner tonight and there will be food for thought.
Georgette Sullins's Blog 