More than an Instant!

The air is filled with floating bubbles. Some of them drift along off in different directions, others swirl around each other for an instant, some linger, some merge - held together by tremulous soapy tendrils.I have heard news of two different sets of parents losing a child this week. With this news I stopped in my tracks and a wave of sadness washed over me. Their grief is unimaginable to me. And yet while I feel genuine sympathy, today I will continue working, go run errands, fold laundry, pick Ayden up at school, and put him to bed. But the delicate bond that holds me and Ayden together will seem all the more fragile and fleeting when juxtaposed to such tragedy, and I will try to remember not to take him for granted.

When the stylish mommy is walking through the mall with her kid following behind in designer jeans, face down, absorbed in a gameboy, and I think some evil thought that contains the words "lazy" and "shallow", it doesn't occur to me until later that I was only there for the briefest of instants in that mommy's life. Just passing by in the mall, does what I observe really sum her up or was she perhaps allowing her kid the gameboy as a reward for: doing all his chores, playing with his baby sister even though his friends think she's lame, getting all A's?

What about the grouchy scrooge in the bookstore who refused to wet a napkin so we could wipe Ayden's face? For all I know, she could have been served divorce papers that morning, or maybe she was just having a bad day. I hope my entire being is not summed up by the one time my life is thrown out of order and I raise my voice in anger.

But my point is that -- today I will kiss my child more, hug him tighter, and really look at his face before this bubble, drenched with the solemn colors of despair, floats away from my conscious thought. That little bubble is too heavy for me to carry around, but maybe, the sheen of the compassion I feel for these parents will stay with me and I will remember to apply it to the other strangers who drift through my life.