Mothers Day Between Strangers

Sometimes experiences between strangers are powerful and bonding, and remain vivid in the mind long after the reality has passed.

Let me share with you,in a moment, such a chance meeting that occurred this weekend that will bring a smile for many years to come.

Being 9 months pregnant in public feels a bit like being a walking miracle on display . The roundness of my belly is a powerful magnet for other women, young and old, and I love it. Men as well, look at me with curious expressions of either awe or simple happiness.  It is often as if all the hopes and dreams one holds within themselves become transparently visible in their expressions as they wonder at the unseen shape moving about beneath my skin. 

  Although women have been giving birth since time eternal, the magnitude and miracle of carrying an unborn child within my body has no less diminished with the coming of my fourth, and the comments of strangers only add to the excitement. I have heard every old wives tale imaginable for predicting the sex of the child, and am happy to indulge a well-meaning stranger who tells me they can tell the sex of my baby by the way I carry my belly. Apparently, since I am carrying low and completely out front as if a basketball were under my shirt, the old wives tales all say it must be a boy. We don’t know the sex and have chosen to let it remain a surprise, but time and experience have taught me to enjoy the wishes and thoughts passed on by well-meaning strangers.

An encounter with such a good -intentioned stranger on Saturday started as a momentary comment and turned into something special. As we entered to stroll the beach-side promenade in White Rock, an older women called out to me in greeting, and explained that her daughter in law was due June 1st. As I am obviously ready to give birth at a moments notice, she wondered if my due date was close, and an excited conversation ensued when I told her anytime.

She explained that her son and daughter in-law lived on the East Coast, and so although she and her husband had been able to travel to see them a couple of times during the pregnancy, she really missed being able to watch the progress firsthand. This would be their first grandchild, and her excitement and joy at the impending birth were contagiously transparent, although tinged with a bit of sadness of the distance between them. We chatted about babies and birth for a bit, and I could see that she was so enthralled at the movements beneath my belly as she told us about her how happy she was to finally be a grandparent. She didn’t ask, or even hint that she  wished to feel that child moving,and yet I sensed that it was such a loss for her to be missing that simple experience. 

As we chatted about how I was doing, the baby’s bum become apparent right under my ribs, and impulsively I took her hand and gently placed it on my belly, moving it softly over his body so she could feel him/her moving. Tears filled her eyes as she looked at me in amazement, our eyes locking in emotion as we both felt the clear outline of a baby’s bottom wiggling under our hands.

As the moment passed and the baby settled into stillness, she removed her hands and raised them to her face with tears and smiles of such utter happiness, I shall never forget it. This was what she had been missing so dearly, and she told us then that when her son called for Mothers Day, she would tell him that God had already given her her present. Such a simple exchange, and yet so deeply felt by both of us for very different reasons.

We chatted for a bit more, and the meeting kept us smiling for a long time after we parted. Her name is Gail,and she is a chaplain at Peace Arch Hospital. It has been a long time since I met someone whose spirit shines through so brightly in every way and it was a pleasure to see a grandparent so in love with a child who has yet to enter this world. He or she will be blessed. 

Why did this exchange mean so much to me? Although I didn’t share this with Gail, I have not had contact with my mother for years, and this loss is often felt at times like this. For one brief moment, our eyes connected while our joined hands felt the movements of my unborn child beneath my skin, and I had the pride and joy of sharing this with a mother. It did not matter that she wasn’t my mother, because for that moment, it felt as though she were mine. This was not a just a gift for her, but for myself as well.

Thank you Gail, for giving me the Mothers Day gift you had no idea you gave.