Mon Petit Chou

A particularly beautiful woman sat across from me recently sipping on blush wine and stealing puffs from someone else’s cigarette. She was talking about all the things she’s learned from her kids; how you going into it thinking of all the ways you’re going to teach your children the things you’ve learned in life, to impart on the them what wisdom you may have gleaned. But when it comes to that time in life where they’re thinking critically and struggling through life’s issues for themselves you realize: that wherever you are in life when you have your children, that’s where they will start out regardless of what you’re trying to teach them or not. That whatever you hold to be beautiful, and right, and true – that that is where they begin and they will build on those ideas for the rest of their lives.

On a warm spring evening a few days later I went to my safe place: a house tucked away on one of the quieter streets in crestwood. A dear from of mine was putting her two year old son to bed. He started to cry because he wanted a familiar object, his blanket, which she found and brought to him. But there was something else he needed, and wailed for it with tears streaming down his little face. No amount of searching could unearth this object. More tears ensued, accompanied with moans that signal that critical moment where normal crying goes into hysteria. I suddenly I remembered what it felt like to cry like that. Instead of reacting with impatience or anger, or even the slightest hint at frustration, the mother bent down and scooped her son into her arms cradled him and I heard her say in a voice like sugar, “I can’t find it buddy. I’m so sorry. I know that you’re so disappointed and it’s ok. I’m so sorry you’re disappointed.”

I realized that I too, had started to cry.

My friend came and sat facing me in her chair, and noticing my wistful expression said to me, “I just want him to always feel like he’s been heard, and that even at his young age that his feelings matter.”

I sat and wept on her sofa for the next two hours.

There is so much beauty all around me, and I feel as though some blinders have been lifted from my eyes and I am just now able to see it although I know it has always been there. Beautiful, strong, kind women fumbling through this rite of passage known as motherhood with no more to guide them than their instinct and the fellowship of others who have already walked this road. I feel that their presence in my life is having a softening effect, and for the first time I am not fighting it but basking in the promise that one day I will be a kinder, more hopeful woman. I long for this day.