The woman wreaked of ugly emotions as she forcefully dragged the screaming child towards her car...
I had pulled into a gas station to fuel up and there was a car at the pump in front of me. It was a cold, gray February late afternoon in Wisconsin. As I had been fueling up myself, I had become an unwitting audience to this scene unfolding before me. When the woman had gotten out of the car to wrestle with the stiff, cold fuel hose, I could hear the child, strapped into the car seat in the back of the car screaming and crying. As a Mom I know the sound of a small child that has exceeded its capacity to cope. My heart immediately went out to that small, tired, possibly hungry child...it's a mother's reaction to the sound of a child in distress. I found my attention turning to the mother. She was young, probably late teens, early twenties. Even at twenty paces, it was easy to see that she was at the end of her rope, as well, as she wrestled the hose over to her car and put gas in her tank. She hadn't swiped a card so she was going to have to go inside to pay for the gas. Sure enough - once she had finished fueling the car, she leaned into the backseat of her car to free the child from the car seat and lift him to the ground. Taking his hand, she led him, still sobbing, into the convenience store to pay for the fuel. What I saw, in that time frame, was a mother and child who were both, pretty much in the same place emotionally. My daughter, who was in the front seat of our car, also saw this scene play out. I was just finishing up fueling my car as the mother and child emerged from the store in the same stressed condition. The child was now fighting back, venting his anger at the only available person - his Mom. She had simply given in to the misery and degenerating conditions of the relationship, and was pulling him by his upper arm towards the car, almost lifting him at times as he was prone to try to go weak at the knees in order to resist. He was inflicting pain on her, and she was inflicting pain on him. This was not good. Just as she got to the car, the child dropped the stuffed toy he was holding and it fell, unseen by the Mom just under the car. As the mother lifted the child back into the car seat, the child erupted into protesting sobs over the loss of the toy, which the mother, not realizing the toy had fallen, interpreted as even more resistance.
Here is where the story changes. I moved to get out of my car, but my daughter put a hand on my arm, and with a worried look said, "Mom, don't." As I slid out of my seat into the cold blustery winter evening, I smiled back at her and said, "I have to." I walked over to the woman, who was just finishing buckling the child into the car seat, and I said in a kind a caring voice, "excuse me..." she immediate took a defensive stance between me and her child, in an instant turning that emotion towards me. "You dropped something..." and I immediately got down on my knees in front of her and smiled up at her, "Let me help" I said. I took my time, probably more than I needed to, fishing under the car, allowing for the space and grace of the changed circumstances to start to take effect. "I saw your little boy dropped a toy as you were putting him back in his car seat..." I stood up with the toy, and handed it to the woman with a smile. "I'm a Mom too, and I can tell that it's been a long day." I smiled at her as she took the toy, her face now softened by our connection, "You have no idea," she responded. As I handed her the toy I touched her in a comforting way on the arm, "Your son?" "Yes," she sighed, as she handed the now more muted, hiccuping child, the stuffed toy. As she prepared to close the door I smiled at the child and said, in parting, "hey buddy, you hold onto that guy now..." and I smiled at her and said, "you may not feel it right now, but Mom is just another word for Love." I wished her well and returned to the car, to my daughters exhortations of potential bad endings and futile efforts. I reminded her of the injured bird that she insisted that I stop and pick up, and take to the wildlife refuge. That little boy and that Mom were just like that little bird and that fallen toy was an invitation to change the direction of things, just like you did that day with the bird - when the world calls to you, it is imperative that you be ready and willing to respond and that you have the highest good of all at heart. It may not work out, or it may create a pivotal moment that changes lives for the better.
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