Taking Time to Relish the Moment

Sometimes the best moments in parenting come when you’re not actively parenting at all.  I was sitting by the pool, reading Wild,the best-selling memoir by Cheryl Strayed, occasionally glancing up from my book to watch the antics of my eleven year-old daughter and her two friends.  I was at the beginning of the book, where Strayed is losing her mother to cancer, living in two time periods at once.  First: the past, where her mother was healthy and vivacious, telling Strayed and her siblings stories, singing them songs, teaching them about nature and using all her creativity to make them feel loved and grounded no matter how shaky their circumstances.  Second, the present, where illness was ravaging Strayed’s mother’s body, taking her far more quickly than doctors had initially predicted.  As I’m reading this frank, raw description of losing a beloved mother, of being consumed with the need to hold onto her, my own mother was thousands of miles away visiting Russia, the land of her father’s birth.Now I always worry a little when my mother travels.  I’m not specifically thinking that she’ll fall and break a limb on all these walking tours she takes, or that she’ll get sick and need medical attention in a country where she doesn’t speak the language.  I’m not imagining her plane will go down, or that her boat will hit an iceberg and sink.  Of course, all these fears go through my mind, as I’m sure something like them goes through hers when I take a trip.  But I always see my mother as resilient, able to handle more than most women half her age.  I see her as solid.  I see her as permanent, which—as I know too well from having lost my father—is a fallacy.  In any case, reading about Strayed’s pain, about her wish to have her mother longer, just to have a chance to hear her voice again, I wished my mother were around so I could hug her, have her tell mea story.

Of course, I’m closer to the age of Strayed’s mother when she died, than I am to the age of the daughter losing her.  And unlike Cheryl Strayed when she lost her mother, I am a mother.  So, as I sat there, reading by the pool watching my long-legged girl doing flips off the diving board, I found myself identifying more with Strayed’s mother,  than with Strayed herself.  Not in an entirely morose way.   Naturally, it went through my mind how devastating it would be to have to say good-bye to your daughter prematurely.  But that wasn’t where my mind dwelled.  Instead, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the brevity of life in a seize-the-day good way.  I felt urgent about the need to appreciate each moment that I am here with my children, to make the most of them, of myself, of our lives together however long that is.  I don’t think that way enough.

Between writing, household chores, arranging for home-repairs, dealing with the car, getting people ready for their Next Big Thing, be it camp, school or a family trip, re-starting my therapy practice after nearly three years, preparing talks—I am so caught up with the minutiae of my life that I am often at risk of missing all the good stuff.  The moments that matter most, those where I get to enjoy the people I love.

So I closed my book and just watched my daughter in the simple act of being her smart, silly, inventive self.  The girls had stopped their game of Marco Polo by now, because a younger girl, hoping to get ingratiate herself to the big girls—had lent them her enormous, inflatable seal.  Zoe and her two friends took turns trying get on its slippery back for a ride, more often than not, causing the seal to slip out from under them, pop up into the air, knocking them back into the water to the tune of their own hysterical giggles.  Finally, when each of them had mastered it and taken a turn riding around the section of the pool where inflatable toys are allowed, a new challenge arose.   From where I sat, I couldn’t tell what they were up to at first.  One of Zoe’s friends took hold of the seal’s head, the other its tail, trying to hold it steady as Zoe climbed aboard.   Now she crouched with her feet planted shakily on its back.  Her goal, it seemed, was to stand.  A few attempts ended with Zoe sliding off one side or another, but finally she got her balance—albeit in a bit of a squat—let go and, arms outstretched, shrieked that she was surfing!  Her friends cheered as Zoe toppled off the seal once again, creating a surprisingly big splash for a sixty-five pounder.

It was just a split second of victory, but the delight on her face brought tears to my eyes.  It is a snapshot of Zoe’s childhood that I’ll remember always, a moment I was around to appreciate, silently cheering her on.