Lesson’s I’ve Learned: Messing Up

My father, Clarence’s, college yearbook photo

When I was a little girl I liked to follow my daddy everywhere. His legs were long and I had a hard time keeping up with him. One of my favorite jobs was to help him gather sap from the maple trees. That’s the stuff that is used to make the syrup we put on our pancakes.

Well, this juice comes out of the trees and it would drip into the buckets which my daddy had hung there. Every day, sometimes two or three times a day, we would have to go around to all the trees and empty those little buckets into one big bucket.

I liked to carry the little buckets to the big one. I was so proud that I could help my daddy. But guess what? I w as working so hard and running so fast that I tripped on the root of a tree. Down I went. The bucket flew out of my hand and the nice maple sap splashed all over me and out onto the ground.

I started crying because I had messed up and I was really trying hard to be good. Have you ever felt like that?

Well, my daddy said it was okay because there was lots and lots more sap coming from the maple trees. So I picked myself up and tried again. my dress was all sticky from the sap, but I guess it came out in the wash.

Whenever I have maple syrup on pancakes, I think back to that time when I spilled the sap, and I remember that even though we mess up once in a while, it’s still okay.

Tags: childhood, maple syrup, messing up, mistake, mistakes, my father

Categorised in: Grace's Childhood

This post was written by Grace Fabian