Good things come...

Patience is not a virtue I often witness in people these days.  Our instant-gratification culture has eliminated the need for patience in so many ways that we rarely practice it at all; combine our impatience with our increasing selfishness and the results can be devastating.

In my college classes we sometimes discussed a method of studying the ability to delay gratification.  A child would be placed in a room, sitting at a table.  On the table were a handful of M&Ms.  The child was told by the researcher that he would be left alone for several minutes, and if the M&Ms were still on the table when the researcher returned, the child would be rewarded with more.  If the child grabbed the M&Ms while the researcher was gone, there would be no reward. 

Once the researcher left the room, hidden cameras recorded the child’s actions.  Some children were grabbers; some were waiters. 

Most of the students I teach, I feel certain, would be grabbers. 

So. 

I must have been about ten years old when my grandmother waved me over to the easy chair where she had lately spent all of her time. 

“Take this,” she whispered.  I had to strain to hear her, but I knew that she was speaking as loudly as she could.  She handed me a twenty-dollar bill with one shaking hand.  “This is for your graduation.”  She looked at me.  I was obviously confused.  “I won’t be able to see you graduate,” she explained, leaning back and closing her eyes. 

When I got home, I put the bill in the top drawer of the chest in my bedroom… the same drawer where I kept bicentennial quarters, the occasional Canadian coin that a distracted shopkeeper might give in change, and my favorite pirate ring. 

I didn’t touch it again for three years. 

When I was thirteen, I came home from school one day to find that my mother had locked herself in the bedroom.  Dad was in the kitchen, sipping coffee — rare for a man who almost never drinks it.  He placed his mug on the table with the patient care he uses for every action.  “Your grandmother passed away today,” he said, making direct eye contact. 

I think my mouth fell open at the blunt statement.  After a moment, I found my voice.  “Which one?” I asked. 

“Your mother’s mother.”  He cleared his throat.  “We’ll be going up there tomorrow night for visitation.” 

That was all that needed to be said.  He returned to his coffee, and I went back to my room.  I opened the top drawer of my chest and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill — the one my grandmother had given me years before.  I sat on my bed, looking at the bill, for several minutes before returning it to the drawer. 

When I was eighteen, I graduated from high school.  On graduation night, after I got home, I pulled out the twenty-dollar bill and put it with the checks, gift cards, and other gifts of congratulations my relatives had sent.  After eight years of waiting, my grandmother’s gift had finally fulfilled its purpose.

We shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it. — Abraham Lincoln