Rosemary.
I met Rosemary before she met me. Her picture was hanging on the wall of the lobby at StonyBrook Child Care Center. A portrait of a beaming woman around 70 years old. Her soft gray hair parted on the side and held back with a lovely rhinestone barette. Her cheeks are naturally, well, rosey. She glows. She actually warms you up with her smile, whether in person or from her framed picture. The frame has an inscription: "Rosemary. Thank you for 30 years of service. We Love You!!!"
The director that gave me the tour a few weeks ago showed me Rosemary's office. It's a kitchen with 2 stoves, a kiddie size table with chairs. Cupboards at kid level. Mixers and stirrers and pans neatly stacked. The smell of brownies permeated the room. Bags of flour, sugar and chocolate chips were on the counters. Rosemary teaches the children how to bake, to stir and pour. She even shows them the proper techniques of licking the bowls and spoons.
On Monday morning I got to meet Rosemary. Aaron and I were seated on the flower-print couch when we heard someone singing a French lullabye. I understood a couple words, but she was humming and singing at the same time. As she rounded the corner her little cart came first. She spotted us and came right over, introduced herself and we did the same. She sat in a chair and got to folding the dish towels in her cart.
"New parents?" Bright, inquisitive eyes.
"Yes, well, here anyhow. We have twin sons that are starting today."
"Oh how lovely! What are their names? How old?"
And on our conversation went. Little details of our lives and she gave us the history of the daycare. She has been there since its inception. She also grew up about three streets over from my mother.
Rosemary during all of this has folded 5 stacks of perfectly folded dish towels. Tidy little squares one on top of the other six high. She hasn't even glanced at them while her hands purposefully pressed them into one another.
She turned to me at one point and asked what I did for a living. Looking around the daycare's parking area that morning I saw BMW's, Audi's, Mercedes and felt a bit diminished to say the least. My seven year old Sienna looked a bit worse for the wear among all that chrome and leather.
Any administrative assistant will tell you that what qualifies as "admin assist" in one place is quite different in another. Rather than get into the scope of my position, I cut right to the chase. "Oh, I'm only a secretary." Rosemary looked right at me and asked why I said "only". And then she said, "I'm blessed to have been born when I was. I never put an "only" before myself. I guess that's our fault though. We told you kids you could be whatever you wanted, we just never knew that you would take it so seriously."
"Well, I wanted to be more I guess."
"You are, you just don't know it yet. But you will."
She smiled at me and stood up, piling her little towers of cloth back into her pushcart.
She walked down the hallway singing, "You are my sunshine. My only sunshine. You make me happy, when skies are gray. You'll never know dear, how much I love you... so please don't take my sunshine away."
I think I'm learning Rosemary. Thank you.
The director that gave me the tour a few weeks ago showed me Rosemary's office. It's a kitchen with 2 stoves, a kiddie size table with chairs. Cupboards at kid level. Mixers and stirrers and pans neatly stacked. The smell of brownies permeated the room. Bags of flour, sugar and chocolate chips were on the counters. Rosemary teaches the children how to bake, to stir and pour. She even shows them the proper techniques of licking the bowls and spoons.
On Monday morning I got to meet Rosemary. Aaron and I were seated on the flower-print couch when we heard someone singing a French lullabye. I understood a couple words, but she was humming and singing at the same time. As she rounded the corner her little cart came first. She spotted us and came right over, introduced herself and we did the same. She sat in a chair and got to folding the dish towels in her cart.
"New parents?" Bright, inquisitive eyes.
"Yes, well, here anyhow. We have twin sons that are starting today."
"Oh how lovely! What are their names? How old?"
And on our conversation went. Little details of our lives and she gave us the history of the daycare. She has been there since its inception. She also grew up about three streets over from my mother.
Rosemary during all of this has folded 5 stacks of perfectly folded dish towels. Tidy little squares one on top of the other six high. She hasn't even glanced at them while her hands purposefully pressed them into one another.
She turned to me at one point and asked what I did for a living. Looking around the daycare's parking area that morning I saw BMW's, Audi's, Mercedes and felt a bit diminished to say the least. My seven year old Sienna looked a bit worse for the wear among all that chrome and leather.
Any administrative assistant will tell you that what qualifies as "admin assist" in one place is quite different in another. Rather than get into the scope of my position, I cut right to the chase. "Oh, I'm only a secretary." Rosemary looked right at me and asked why I said "only". And then she said, "I'm blessed to have been born when I was. I never put an "only" before myself. I guess that's our fault though. We told you kids you could be whatever you wanted, we just never knew that you would take it so seriously."
"Well, I wanted to be more I guess."
"You are, you just don't know it yet. But you will."
She smiled at me and stood up, piling her little towers of cloth back into her pushcart.
She walked down the hallway singing, "You are my sunshine. My only sunshine. You make me happy, when skies are gray. You'll never know dear, how much I love you... so please don't take my sunshine away."
I think I'm learning Rosemary. Thank you.
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