Perfect Attendance

My generation has awards for showing up. Our early report cards had a place for a gold or silver star depending on the number recorded in the Attendance box. Mr. Timby, our Sunday school superintendent, proudly wore a pin with many small bars hanging down, each representing a year with no absences from church. At the end of June he handed out similar prizes to children and adults who had been in class every Sunday since September. In college we were told the number of allowable misses for classes and chapel, but the norm was that they while permitted, absences were not acceptable. From Day One at my time at Illinois Bell and AT&T we were told to be at our desks, regardless of the bugs we freely shared with co-workers. The monthly corporate newsletter listed all those with a year’s perfect attendance and there were special gifts should you manage the five or ten year mark.


I never had perfect attendance at school.  I did try, but had to give in to mumps, measles, tonsillitis, and other childhood maladies. There were a couple of years when I didn’t miss a day of work, but occasionally things like the flu or pink eye kept me home.
 

Attendance was just one area where I tried and failed at perfection. You see, the problem is that somehow early on I equated perfection, whether in attendance or anything else, to love and acceptance. Failure was guaranteed, which sure complicates life. This played out particularly in two major areas: the mother-daughter relationship and the God the Father-child connection. Try though I might to be the perfect daughter, I wasn’t, and therefore never felt truly loved or accepted. I’ll describe it this way: I might find the perfect present for my mother, but her look told me I had wrapped it in the wrong paper. The sad thing is that she wasn’t satisfied with our relationship either, but no big bridges got built while she was alive, though I think we both made attempts. In terms of being a child of God, well, Miss Goody Two-Shoes failed there miserably as well. In both arenas, my offering – from attendance to a present to living a godly life – was never perfect.

Things are very different these days. At work my colleagues successfully argued that sick and vacation days do not belong in the same accrual bucket as that encourages people to come to work sick, leaving more days for vacation. There are many more things to attract our attention on a Sunday morning, and while I don’t know about school attendance, I somehow think that the gold and silver stars have lost their impact.

I’ve also learned that, despite what I thought in my youth, no one had the perfect parental relationship. Whether son or daughter, mother or father, few of us were the parent or child that the other needed even most of the time, but each of us has muddled along into imperfect human beings who can find love and acceptance with one another. And once I replaced the concept of religion with spirituality and the white-bearded iconic Santa Claus with Creator, I realized that as long as we show up in some way even with all of our imperfections, the connection is there, ours for the taking. My main lesson? Sometimes good enough is much better than perfect.

Marilyn