Strangers say a lot of weird stuff to you when you’re a mom of young kids. Actually it starts when you’re pregnant, the license of all people everywhere to comment freely on your size, your birth plan, your future parenting strategies. What?! You’re knocked up and no STRATEGIES?! Well, girlfriend, no sweat, it’s all grand, because that odd man in Nordstrom will give you some.
Then you have your baby and it gets even worse, and then your baby becomes a small human and it gets even double-worse. Oh. My. Goodness, and then you have two kids two years apart you’re toting around everywhere and the comments just can’t stop, won’t stop.
“Oh, my, do you have your hands full!”
“Two GIRLS?! Boy, are you in for it! Speaking of boy, will you try for one???”
“How far apart are they? WOW, that’s close!”
“She’s a little young to be watching an iPad, no? Hmmm!”
And the ever-popular: “Enjoy every moment. It goes so fast!”
Mostly I smile and nod, sometimes unfazed, sometimes annoyed, sometimes a little bit touched. But other times, usually when I least expect it, the words of a stranger stay with me, stick to my psyche, and—dare I say—save my whole day.
This was one of those MOMents.
It was last month on a Tuesday morning. I was feeling massively overwhelmed by two kids, exhausted beyond human measure and mostly just kind of blah. I desperately needed what I call a soul-reset, which is precisely what it sounds like: a brief chance to reset my soul and overall heart mood. I have a few preferred methods of doing this. Sometimes Jesus Calling helps; other times a quick drive through Starbucks does the trick; and doing something kind for somebody else almost always readjusts my perspective.
But another of my favorite, sure-fire ways of transforming my outlook is seeing the ocean. If I’m feeling less then awesome, but can somehow get myself to the beach, even for just a minute, my frame of mind is renewed and I can see the world as a beautiful place again. I think it has to do with needing to feel really small in a really big way. Eyes open, mind quiet, phone down, acknowledging the majesty of a larger power who somehow cares about my little life on my hardest of days. I am known; I am loved; it is going to be OK.
So I packed up the SUV with my tribe-lings and all of our gear. It seemed as good a day as any to bust out the Double BOB for a legitimate field trip. Plus snacks, waters, worship mix, check. Yes, this was GOOD. In fact, I was quickly becoming convinced that this was the best idea I’d ever had. We were going to stroll the cliffs of Corona Del Mar (my fave) and we were going to have SO MUCH FUN.
Naturally, Emerson started resisting my brilliance before we even reached PCH. “I want to go to the LIBRARY!” she insisted in her feistiest shout. I’m all about pushing books on my kids, but I really needed this morning, so bribery would just have to be part of it. (Ha! As if bribing my kids is a rarity.)
I thought fast and drove straight to CDM mainstay Rose’s Bakery Café. Donuts are powerful bargaining tools and would easily buy me some walking mileage. We could park there and stroll to my cliffs. “We’re getting DONUTS, Em! Won’t that be fun!” I unloaded the girls and the gear, which basically took three days and the power of 17 horses. Up to Rose’s we strolled.
But here’s where my plan fell apart. Moms, listen up: NOT ALL THE WORLD EMBRACES THE DOUBLE-WIDE STROLLER. Shocking, I know, but it’s true. You will endure glares, judgment and shaming—especially in, say, small confined spaces called bakery cafes.
I wheeled the girls in without issue, even made it up to the counter to order our goods. However, just then the entire adjacent neighborhood decided to pour into the store behind me, forming a crowd, packing us in like smushed cotton. By the time I paid my three bucks and grabbed our treats, there was literally nowhere that I could turn. Absolutely nowhere, no how. Surrounded by OC’s finest and fittest, I stood there near the register with my double-wide and my fattening pastries, wishing this moment away and feeling my face flush pinker than Em’s strawberry donut frosting. The door was more than 15 feet from us, which might as well have been 15 miles. The scathing looks from everyone around me spoke actual encyclopedia volumes in silence.
“What were you THINKING bringing that huge thing in here?!” Um, not sure.
“UGH. Why do people procreate. EVER.” Again, not sure.
“MOMS! No consideration for anyone else.” Actually, that’s not fair.
Defeated, humiliated, massively regretting this futile attempt at lifting my spirits, I managed to pivot the double-wide toward the door and I just started moving. The ocean of Soul Cyclers and Black Coffee, No Sugars would just have to part. And they did. Of course not without further disgust and eyes made of breadknives.
But then. An older man near the door—say, 65 years old, around my own dad’s age—stood up from the tiny table he was sharing with his petite radiant wife in a magenta polo. He weaved his way through the crowd like a sweet little silver-haired ninja and he held that door wide open. The gesture formed a lump in my throat. I hardly could handle his kindness in this bakery of hate. I continued squeezing past all the patrons and I turned to look at his wife. Chic gray bob under a visor, wrinkles showing grandkids and understanding. And then, her Jesus Eyes, shining.
“We’ve all been there,” she said with the warmest smile.
Don’t cry, Steph. Don’t cry. ”Thank you so much for saying that,” I managed to squeak.
FINALLY, after 25 years, I reached the door. The man had Jesus Eyes, too. “You saved my whole day!” I said. “I cannot thank you enough for getting the door.”
He waved his hand indicating it wasn’t no thang. “My daughters are doing exactly what you’re doing! Only they live in North Carolina so I never get to see them. I miss them and the grandkids so much. And my; look at your own daughters! They’re beautiful. God bless you.”
That was it. One couple’s kindness, you guys—one act of love and my whole morning shifted. And the simplest of commonplace phrases: We’ve all been there. But how powerful are those words? Just as silent glares can communicate everything, so can a few compassionate words. In a single sentence, that woman said:
“I get it, girlfriend.”
“Ignore these jerk faces.”
“We’re not the same age, but we’re both moms, and I’m really, really sorry this moment sucks.”
“It’s not going to be like this always.”
“Believe it or not, someday your kids will be raised, and you’ll be sitting here with your own husband, and he will get up to help a young mom with the door, and much to your surprise, something in your heart will pang sharply and you will miss this time in your life.”
Partly due to PTSD and partly due to hormones but mostly due to that God-given encounter with the nicest couple in Newport, tears streamed down my face as I paced through the streets toward the ocean. Hadley was fast asleep and Em chomped happily on her donut, neither the slightest bit conscious that their mom just nearly died of mortification.
In no time, I reached my cliffs, the same cliffs where I’d prayed about my college major, wept over a miscarriage, and where Doug ran in the rain shouting, “I LOVE HER!” on the night he first told me he loved me 11 years ago. My sacred cliffs overlooking the sea that never failed to save me. “Thanks, God,” I whispered, gazing out at the glory, feeling just as small as I needed to. “Thank you for these girls, thank you for my life, thank you for revealing your kindness. I can do this, and I can do it well. Thank you for your strength every day.”
True to my history with spirit rejuvenation tactics, everything began to look brighter.
And since I had recently taken Emerson to see the movie Inside Out, which so brilliantly personifies the emotions of a young girl as she navigates a tough time in her life, I wanted to see how my little tot felt in that very moment.
“Emerson, look at the ocean! Isn’t it so beautiful? How does it make you feel?”
Pause. Bite of donut. Continued pause. “It makes me feel CLEAN!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Out of the mouth of babes.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Soul-reset officially conquered.
“Attitude is the difference between an ordeal and an adventure.”
– Author Unknown
“Whatever you have done for the least of these, you have done for me.”
– Jesus
