Back on July 12th, I wrote about the shawl I gifted to the woman at UCSF who was six months along after having had a late miscarriage. Having miscarried my first and worried about my second the same way, it felt imperative to me that I wish her and her baby well with the efforts of my hands. To wrap her in comfort, in my publisher’s phrase.
I’d been wondering the last few weeks… She was due in October sometime…
I got the most wonderful message yesterday. She sent me photos of her new son, just the most exquisite pictures of great happiness of her and her husband and their little one. It completely, totally made my day, and it was so kind of her to think of me, and at the most sleepless time of new parenthood, I’m sure; I remember the days. My husband and son looked at the screen, too, and cooed, “Oh, cuuuuute!”
So then I went off to Trader Joe’s feeling absolutely on top of the world for a quick grocery run, you know, just mundane little stuff on the side. I’d run out of Valrhona chocolate. This wouldn’t do.
There was a young mom there with a small baby in a stroller that she was trying to maneuver through the aisles and between people, carefully. There was a pretty good crowd for a Saturday night. I thought, oh cool, another baby, and let her pass as one of the employees watched the baby go by, blinking cheerfully up at him. He caught my eye a moment later and told me that he was in awe of women who were moms. They had so much to do and to deal with; he was one of four kids himself, and he didn’t know if he could ever manage what his mom had. He hoped someday, when he had kids…
Now, I’ve seen this guy many a time and I’ve never seen him open up like that. He was glowing, just radiant in appreciation, towards his mom, towards every mom, completely different from the busy no-nonsense at-work persona he usually gave off. It surprised me, and I came away with a new appreciation for him.
A few moments later, that mom passed by me again a few aisles down; her baby was about four months, just old enough to be constantly looking for faces, and then smiling in great delight when she found one. And the face smiled back at her! And that one too! Yay! There is nothing quite as powerful as the goodness in a tiny child to light up a place. The whole store got happy. And, having been in the young mom’s shoes, I know how much it means to have strangers respond like that; it helps one cope with the colicky moments that come, too.
At the checkout line, there was a young couple behind me, and she stepped away for a moment to get one last thing. He’d smiled at the baby, too, and he, too, was still smiling. He struck up a conversation with me, and when his girlfriend came back, I ratted him out: “He’s been bragging on you.” He blushed; she was pleased.
There were three 71% Valrhona bars left, and they had all gone into my cart. The girlfriend saw them, and I told her, “Best chocolate on the planet.” She looked on the shelf–but there were no more. I handed her one of mine. She wanted to know how long it took me to eat one, and I answered, “I open the bar and nibble a bit every now and then as I go by; it’ll last me about five days.”
“Yeah, me too!” While her boyfriend was shaking his head with a grin, declaring that he just snarfs the whole bar at one sitting. I told him my hubby would, too. (Although, to be fair, nowadays he’s cut back.)
I was thinking at them, it’s comforting, when you’re new at this relationship stuff and it’s still in the baby stages, to know that other couples approach things differently from each other too but in the same ways as the two of you. It’s just part and parcel of life, and you grow on from there.
Two babies. Two brand new people, and all the grownups whom they made into instant friends yesterday. They’ll never remember. But we can.