I Have Seen Her

            I have seen her. The Target parking lot, the produce section at Kroger, standing in the LONG line at the post office...I've seen her all these places and many more. Sometimes she is in her forties and sometimes in her fifties, sixties or seventies, sometimes her skin is brown and sometimes white, Sometimes she is fit and sometimes she is barely able to walk. While each time her appearance is completely different the one thing that makes her identifiable is the look in her eyes when she sees me.

            You see every time she sees me I am not alone. I am toting a 15lb baby in a 10 lb carrier in my right arm and the rest of my entire body is leaning to the left to try and somehow not topple over. In my left hand I hold the precious fingers of a three year old who will most definitely dart away if our hands aren't intertwined. Sometimes when I have seen her she has seen the bags under my eyes that tell her I was up all night with a fussy 3 month old, sometimes when she sees me she hears me bribing my 3 year old to be good just a little bit longer and I will give her a treat, she has heard me raise my voice, she has watched as I turned my head and pretended not see my child eat the dirty grapes out of the bag in the grocery line, she has heard me answer 448 questions from my three year old, she has seen me make silly faces at my 3 month old and she has seen me trying to comfort him when he is sick of errands.



         Her eyes are what make her recognizable.  Her eyes see me with my babies and then her eyes look at me and without her having to say a word her eyes tell me that she misses it. She misses all of it and if it were possible she would sell a lot of possessions and give up some amazing vacations to go back just a moment in time and have her babies in her arms and under her roof just one more time.  Her eyes tell me that she knows I am tired but don't get discouraged and don't blink because time is a vapor and if you blink it will all be over. Your kids will be grown, you will be alone at the grocery, you won't hear the pitter patter of feet in your house anymore and you will miss it. Her eyes tell me that every time she sees babies her arms long to hold hers one more time.


         Babies grow so fast and pretty soon they are kids and a few seconds later they are adults and before we know it they have kids of their own. On the days when it feels like I cannot deal with one more tantrum, on the nights when it feels like I cannot listen to my baby cry one more second; I see her. I see her eyes looking at me, looking at my babies and I remember just how precious this time of my life is. Motherhood is hard, exhausting and one of the least glamorous jobs on earth but as I said before time is a vapor and very soon I will not be seeing her I will be her. I will be walking out of Target seeing a young mom with her young babies and I will be missing all of it. Today I will hold my babies tighter and read an extra book or two to them. Tonight when they are asleep I will lie down in my bed and thank God for my babies.