Sometimes, I am not sure if observing people with a permeating eye of a writing soul is a blessing or a curse.
Speaking of blessings, yesterday at church, I observed a mother with two children, both girls, who sat in a pew in front of my mother and me. The mother was holding a baby who was between 12 and 18 months of age and kept her pretty much engaged the entire time, with the exception of her giving quick instructions in Spanish to her remaining 3-4 year old daughter to tell her to take out a drawing book out of her pink backpack.
The girl turned to face us and with an upside down smile on her face began studying my mother and me from head to toe with her huge brown beautiful eyes, curtained by thick long matching eyelashes. She did everything with much intensity but was being extra careful not to disturb her mother, the baby, us, nor the people sitting next to them.
Hoping to get a smile, we smiled at her and nodded to let her know she was being extremely good but to no avail. The girl kept staring at us cautiously not giving any indication that she could possibly smile at any given moment. "What would it take?" I thought. I was determined to make this child smile, here, today, right now, just because she deserved it so much. She deserved a moment of happiness, carefree existence, free from the responsibility of being the big sister, of having to be mature beyond her years.
I don't mean to say that I agree with lack of parenting, we so often see nowadays, with children misbehaving and discipline not even entering the most basic stages of what used to be the social norm but this was different. I kept looking at her with a warm smile just paying attention to what she was doing without judgment in my gaze or any indication of disapproval. She dug into her pink backpack and quickly pulled out a piece of paper that looked like a photograph. She put it down on the bench and quickly looked up to see my reaction. The photo depicted two puppies, one black and one brown snuggled together. I smiled from ear to ear and she gave me a really quick smile but she wasn't finished. She shuffled in her backpack and proceeded to pull out another piece of paper, depicting another picture of a puppy, which made me smile even wider and bump my Mom's elbow to take a look which caused us both to show our appreciation for such a wonderful sight. This time, when the little girl looked up at us, she had a beautiful smile on her face, and from then on, every time she gazed at me, she smiled and her eyes sparkled. I sighed a sigh of relief and knew this little girl just had a moment she had been hoping for who knows for how long. It's such a shame her mother completely missed it, fussing over the baby. This is a moment, one day, she will wish she hadn't missed like many more she probably already has. Amazingly, at the end of the service, the mother told the girl (I understand a little Spanish) to pick up her things, and she did so, once again, with precision of someone much older. Before they rushed off prior to the final blessing, the girl shared a moment with another youngster who sat in front of her, wearing a red velvet hat, to whom she offered a page from her coloring book. The other girl took it and kept herself occupied with it, to her parents delight, for the rest of the time. Unfortunately, the mother of our girl, missed that one too.
