About 11am, I decided to take my slightly feverish, slightly disgruntled baby off to our neighborhood pool, figuring that the cool water will feel good to her, or would at least be better than errands. School is back in session, so the pool was pretty uncrowded. There were a couple of 3 year-old girls splashing around while their moms chatted on the side of the pool, as well as a couple who had parked themselves as far away from kid zone as possible. Lillian, of course, made sure to wander over there later and thus foil their plans, though they didn't seem too bugged. I recognize the moms from church and we exchange the tight-lipped "hi" of people who know just enough of each other to be friendly.. I asked how old the girls were ("3"), and the conversation stopped there. One of the women told me that I looked like her brother's girlfriend from Baton Rogue. (sidebar: people tell me these sorts of things all the time, and even with years of experience, I still never know what to say. Seriously, what is the socially correct response here? I usually stick with a smile and brief chuckle. Lame, I know). They made no comments about L, so I got the message and Lillian and I navigated into the middle of the pool by ourselves. (sidebar zwei: if you are somewhere and you see a mom with a newly-minted walker, tell her how cute her kid is. She will be incredibly proud of the new skill and will be thrilled that you can recognize her child's amazingness as well.)
A little while later, L decided that she'd had enough of the water and that she wanted to run around on dry land. We splashed in puddles, picked up leaves, and made 87 beelines towards the 3 year olds' Barbie dolls (incidentally, the little girls were as unfriendly as their moms--"no baby! don't touch! mine!"). L was having a blast until she tripped over a little crack in the cement and fell. First to her knees, and then the full face wipeout. She immediately started crying, so I picked her up and what seemed like buckets of blood poured out of her mouth. We trotted off the bathroom and I cleaned her up while she splashed in the sink. Her lip is a little busted but will certainly heal. Timing isn't great with family pictures tonight, but hey! that's life with a baby! I was a little shaken up since this was a first for her, but she had quickly stopped crying and was behaving perfectly normally.
I gathered up our stuff and prepared to head out, which is when we will come to the whole point of this long-winded story. The two women, who were chatting about the price of Lunchables while their kids played on the other side of the pool, did not acknowledge me at all. Despite the fact that I had just hauled a screaming, bleeding child off to the bathroom, they could not be bothered to stop discussing school lunches and take 2 seconds to ask if she was okay now that I had returned. I was pretty mad, especially considering I knew that they attended my church and considering that their kids were not even playing within eyesight of them (therefore they weren't overly preoccupied with them). In fact, every time I think of this moment, I feel my mommy hackles raise up and my indignation kicks in. But here are some brief conclusions I've come to in the few hours of reflection I've had since this happened.
1. They could not have known that the whole "bleeding, screaming" child was a first for me and therefore more traumatizing than it needed to be.
2. They were being selfish, a sin I am guilty of all the time. When I ignore third world poverty and the girl at the Bible study who doesn't know anyone and the man in church who looks a little different and the fact that more slaves exist now, today, than in the entirety of the transatlantic slavetrade (how's that for a mind-blowing stat), I am saying to untold fathers, mothers and children, "I'm too busy to be concerned about your problems; I'm too preoccupied with my own comfort to do anything for you." Granted, those scenarios/realities are not all equal, but the underlying principle is the same: I have been given grace upon grace upon grace, and as such, I need to extend the same. To these women, to the people in Harris Teeter, to people around the globe.
3. I want to teach Lillian to be kind. And I don't mean the vague, generic sense of this term. I mean the in-the-trenches, grace-upon-grace, doesn't-always-feel-good kindness that Jesus practiced. Obviously I'm still learning this and failing often at this myself, but Lillian's first busted lip will always remind me of the importance of kindness. Of taking time to talk to people, to invest in them, however briefly.
And in the words of Charles Spurgeon
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