Memories | 100 Words

Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present

September 13th, 2025
Mollie T. Cox

She likes red,” said the little girl.

Red,” said Mr. Rabbit. “You can’t give her red.”

Something red, maybe,” said the little girl.
Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present by Charlotte Zolotow

I’ve loved this book since the first time my school librarian read it in 1964. I was in the 1st grade. I don’t think I encountered Mr. Rabbit again until a children’s literature course in college.

I knew Mr. Rabbit was fiction. I knew I shouldn’t follow a rabbit into the woods to look for something red or yellow or green or blue—even if he was polite and spoke perfect English. (You know all this, too.)

Still, it was tempting to think I could.

My husband and I vacationed in the mountains last month and who did we find in the woods? Mr. Rabbit. We knew he would be there because we saw him last time.

My husband said, “Something red, maybe.” (He had read the book to our sons.)

I followed Mr. Rabbit. Just for a photo.

Left: Mr. Rabbit drawn by Maurice Sendek. Right: Mr. Rabbit in the Shenandoah National Park

First grade Book Magic hasn’t disappeared.

Have you experienced lasting Book Magic?

Memories, Parenting

Perhaps I Did Do My Best

May 3rd, 2025
Mollie T. Cox

Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary we all carry about with us.
Miss Prism, The Importance Of Being Earnest

Yes, but it usually chronicles the things that have never happened and couldn’t possibly have happened.
Cecily, The Importance of Being Earnest

I don’t believe my memories are my imagination, but I do know that memories are tricky. Sometimes I forget the victories and remember the struggles. Sometimes the opposite. As I think about raising my sons, my memories tell me I could have listened more or played more or many other things more.

Rarely does one get a chance to revisit past situations. Last month—as I cared nonstop for young children for days and days—I got that chance.

Through last month’s filter of sleep deprivation, constant action, fatigue, and rarely having solitude to think, the things I left unsaid and undone while raising my sons were not unreasonable. By reliving my circumstances when my own children were young, I now understand that the things that I wish I had made happen couldn’t possibly have happened.

Perhaps I did do my best. Like you.

Memories, Parenting

Our Children’s Memories

January 4th, 2025
Mollie T. Cox

Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.
Dr. Seuss

My husband and I have spent a lot of time with our children. We’ve said a lot of things to them as well. Which activities and words were important? According to Dr. Seuss, the moments my children remembered.

Unfortunately, those moments are not always the ones I remember. These days, I’m surprised when my memories coincide with my sons’ memories.

“I don’t remember that” was my mother’s worse response to my vivid recollections. I vowed that I would remember what my children shared until I didn’t.

I’ve read that if you ask children from the same household to describe their childhood, you will get vastly differing accounts. My sister’s memories of our childhood compared to mine are consistent with this statement. Now I understand it wasn’t the overall experience that differed but rather our key moments.

What do I wish I had known? To slow down and think instead of rushing responses and experiences. The totality of a vacation is not as important as a remembered moment during a day.

May we all make the most of our 2025 moments.

Christmas, Memories

Returning to Former Places

December 21st, 2024
Mollie T. Cox

At a recent banquet, one speaker urged his listeners to revisit places of former years—not literally, but rather as a mind exercise. His words immediately brought forth a memory of former years as well as a memory of a visit to that place decades later.

In the 1990s, during a rare trip to my grandparents’ home, I stood in their front yard one late night and was ambushed by the pungency of the honeysuckle growing in their far backyard. That smell immediately evoked a 1960s image of my mother, aunt, and grandparents drinking coffee and talking around a concrete table while my siblings and I chased fireflies and listened to their comforting, adult conversations.

Almost another thirty years have passed, and that memory of a memory is still with me. I’m not sure why it lingers or why it means so much—maybe even more than the original memory of evenings I loved before air-conditioning kept us indoors.

However, I’m glad for both the urging and permission to return to former places—whether literally or in my mind—especially during the holidays when I might be ambushed again.

May only good memories sneak up on you this Christmas.

Memories

I Want to Know I Can Go Back

October 5th, 2024
Mollie T. Cox

I usually leave a place making plans to return. (Just ask my husband.) Boston, Halifax, Ipanema, New York City, Niagara Falls, the Rock of Gibraltar as well as lesser-known Chimney Rock, Black Mountain, and Bryson City—especially Bryson City.

The last three cities were not only the most realistic for another visit, but also the most obscure until Hurricane Helene’s devastation. Black Mountain made The Today Show. The Mayor of Asheville began to weep during her interview as she spoke of the damage to the town where she lived.

On Chimney Rock lookout with Lake Lure below (2014)

As I write this, Lake Lure is a field of debris.

I texted a friend “Thankfully, Bryson City only sustained significant damage from flooding.” Before Helene, I would not have considered “significant damage from flooding” good news.

I may never go back to the places I listed. I no longer carry the hope that they are waiting for me—as happy and well as I left them. Two friends emailed that they would pray for me as I grieved the loss.

Have you lost a place?