So much in common, I supposed.

I'm a clutz. A bonafide, verified, genuine clutz. I don't even have to try to get bruises because they come looking for me. That cartoon where Daffy Duck steps on a 2x4 and gets whacked in the bill. I've done that. I am not really surprised when I get slammed because I've come to expect it even if I don't see it coming.

But sometimes other things happen in life that feel like you just got whacked in the bill by a 2x4 and you are surprised. Brutally, flagrantly surprised. You really don't see it coming and not only did you not see it coming you never even thought it would come.

It happened this morning while I was erasing pages from my daughter's language arts workbook. Being the frugal mom that I am I purchased a used workbook that was adverised on a homeschool site. It said that a few pages had been filled in with a pencil, 'easily erased' it said. I said, 'sold'!  We've had if for several months and I've been erasing the pages as I need them.

Erasing someone elses words seems like a benign task, especially when they've been written lightly on a page by a child. A child that is my own child's age who is also home schooled like my own child. So much in common. A family that chose to school their child like our family did. I enter what I now realize may be a romanticized view of other people in the world. I assume we have so much in common and on the surface we do but then I see it.

I didn't really know what it was I was seeing at first. A child's scrawl over preprinted words on a page, I almost missed it. I started to erase those pencil marks written over a printed word in black and thought nothing of it but something didn't fit. I stopped and peered harder at what I saw.

No, that can't be right? I looked harder. I leaned in to the page really close to make sure my eyes weren't tricking me.

And there it was. Written over the word 'negro' was another word that began with 'n', ended with 'r' but there the similarities ended.

I don't have words to describe fully what I felt. Dismay is the closest word. My heart sank. I was filled with disbelief followed shortly by sadness.

Where did that word come from? How did that child even know the word? Where did they learn to spell it?

I must be cautious not to presume too much. They are strangers to me and there are many influences in a child's life.

It gave me great pause and made me soberly remember the mandate.

Raise up a child in the way he should go and he will not easily depart from it....