Holding Mom’s Hand – My Proudest Moment
Unsolicited parenting advice, from a childless woman. I’m at the mailroom on post to feed the unemployed carrier pigeons in my message box. It’s lonely as an Air Force officer assigned to an Army Post, but the garrison’s location in Stuttgart, Germany doesn’t garner much sympathy.
It’s the end of a workday, one more day until a much-needed weekend.
I’m at the mailroom on post to feed the unemployed carrier pigeons in my message box. It’s lonely as an Air Force officer assigned to an Army Post, but the garrison’s location in Stuttgart, Germany doesn’t garner much sympathy.
I’m a salmon, swimming against the current of returning mailroom visitors. Smiling faces flaunt care packages, letters and cards.
Among them is a woman juggling car keys in one hand and a small stack of mail in the other.
Several paces behind her and taking half steps to catch up is a young girl, maybe 6 or 7 years old.
It seems safe to presume the little one belongs to the woman, since she’s calling her “Mommy.”
“Mommy, I wanna hold your hand,” the little one whines, holding out her tiny hand to bridge the ever-increasing gap between her and Mom.
“Honey! Keep moving, we have a lot to do.” Mom is very clearly on a mission.
“Pleeeeeeaaaaaasssssseeeee?”
“Baby, come on!”
The daughter resigns herself to a familiar response, rejection slowing her little strides as she hangs her head and begrudgingly complies with the family commander.
I watch the two of them as an outsider, a childless woman never having heard the tick of a biological clock alarming me to procreate. I have several friends with children well beyond the “Mommy I wanna hold your hand” phase. Those spawn have relocated to the demanding land of “Hey, chauffeur lady, drop me off at my destination a few blocks away, will ya?”
I weigh my mother-daughter foresight against a live-and-let-live course of inaction. Plus, I have days’ worth of no mail to not collect. And I can’t think of many parents who welcome the unsolicited parenting advice from a childless lesbian.
But the little girl’s disappointment melts my sense of what’s appropriate and evaporates socially-understood boundaries.
Contrary to every Mother’s admonition that she has eyes in the back of her head, the little girl’s Mom doesn’t see when I do an about face, fall into formation with the little girl and grab her hand.
I tell the little human, “Someday soon, your Mom will be begging you to hold her hand.”
The little hand tightly grips mine, her sluggish pace rejuvenates into a defiant march and soon we are keeping up with Mom.
Mom looks down at her precious daughter, hand in hand with the giver of unsolicited parenting advice.
She rearranges her car keys and mail to free up a hand and our short-term family of three completes the trip to their car, hand in hand.
Every day has moments providing us with opportunities to be our best.
We may have to slow our pace, juggle our mail and hold someone’s hand, but the good news is: it won’t always be that way.
Or maybe that’s the bad news.
Either way, right now is the one moment we won’t get back.
Let’s not just mail it in.