I felt her presence

Today at the library, I sat down for a moment to vet a few of the picture books I had gathered for Mina. Don't want to take home any obvious duds. My chair backed up to the back of another chair and I could hear the mother sitting there reading a silly poem aloud to her daughter. When they finished the poem, they spoke for a moment about how they liked the poem, and then the mother said, "Would you like to take this book home with us since we enjoyed it so much?"

I'm not sure what it was about this. Her voice? Her words? They seem unremarkable enough. Something more subtle? Probably. I don't know, but it startled me, hearing her. Woke me up. And I thought, "Oh. She's really here. This woman's really with her daughter. Right now."

I looked around. I had come to the library with my four children, but right now, I was not with any of them. John was reading across the way at a table. The other children were out of sight, but I knew that two of them were staring at screens in a nearby room and the other was wandering, looking for books. We come here together but we do not come to be together. We come to do our own thing.

When was the last time I was truly with them, any of them? When did we do something together? Even when I'm paying attention to my kids, I thought, I realized, I admitted, I'm not that with them. Not like she was.

I'm not beating myself over the head with it, although I suppose I still could. It's not about comparing myself to her. It was just a moment of waking up to the truth that I'm not really present with my kids. I didn't know it before like I know it now, today. I thought I was, at least sometimes. But what I heard or felt or understood from that mother to her child: that was presence. I knew it when I heard it, but I don't know how to do it.