Almost from birth we are steadily being shaped and taught how best to navigate and acclimate into polite society. Not just our parents but siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, ministers, teachers and sometimes strangers innocuously influence our dreams and goals.
Along the way we all experience growing milestones – The much anticipated and talked about first day of school (see recent posts – Best Friend Lifelong Choice), where we will be grouped together by age and introduced to structured learning with back-and-forth discussions and useful accessories such as computers, books, rulers, and other tools.
Another major milestone is the first-time journeying from home without adult supervision. Be it around the block or to the local store it usually involves the company of an older sibling or a neighbor of the same age or older.
From here we graduate to walks downtown/town center with a friend and with a few dollars in your pocket visits to local businesses. It was on one such excursion with my best friend (again, see recent posts – Best Friend Lifelong Choice) that my decision to someday become a mother was solidified.
At a local donut shop we sat across from a young and pretty red-haired woman, probably in her early thirties. With a little blond boy in a stroller. Watching the two of them together I was captivated. Her playful demeaner and constant smile were coupled with a stream of encouraging words. He laughed and giggled stringing together what must have been sentences only a baby can understand, but his mom smiled and spoke back with each sound, she seemed to be totally enthralled with how this child must certainly be the smartest and most enchanting baby ever to have been born.
This seemingly passive, innocent encounter shaped my life. I knew full well that I too would experience this joy of selfless love that I had witnessed between this mother and child. Just sitting there felt like I was seeing into my own future. It is hard to believe but I was not surprised that both of my babies were boys.
Being the fifth child of seven, this type of encounter would most likely be on rare display in our home, imagine the circulating of love and discipline amongst seven children. Just a much different environment from that of an only child.
So, in short, I am saying that perhaps one brief pause in the action of life might be a roadmap to our future. I know this coffee shop encounter with a stranger was for me.