Maddie Kresevic
English 102
October 21, 2015
Dr. Whitton
A mothers love is simple: caring, forgiving, and unconditional. This is shown in Billy Collins poem “The Lanyard”, which starts out with the narrator reflecting on a lanyard that gives him memory of back when he would go to summer camp. This is because he made a lanyard out of boredom and brought it home to give to him mother. The narrator thinks as a young boy that this can thank his mom for all she has done, but then he realizes once he gets older that nothing he can do will repay his mothers efforts. After reading the poem “The Lanyard, I believe that the narrator feels as if he will never be able to give back to his mother what she has given to him in his life, however, what he does not realize is that his mothers view could be completely different. What if he has already given her everything she has wanted? Could it be that just his possible existence is the biggest repayment of all? For example when the narrator says “Here is a breathing body and a beating heart, strong legs, bones and teeth, and two clear eyes to read the world” (Collins 31-33), he is stating that the mother has a healthy living baby, and in reality that is all a mother really wants.
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People say “the best things in life come free”, and I think this is a good way of explaining a child. Now I am not saying that children are free of costs, because they are not, but any small gestures a child does can go a long way in a mothers heart. In the poem it states how when the boy gave his mother the lanyard that she basically accepted it as a gift of repayment: “I was as sure as a boy could be that this useless, worthless thing I wove out of boredom would be enough to make us even” (Collins