Skip to main content

A Mommy Friend

She was just done being a baby and I was almost done being a girl when I met Ashley Walker. Fair hair and large blue eyes, all of us almost teenage girls wanted to hold the adorable toddler. And as toddlers often have an affinity for the people who are not quite grown up yet, she’d sit on my lap during the worship time at my parents’ small group. Occasionally, her mom would me hire me and I’d babysit. Then little Ashley and her family moved to Oregon—the modern day Oregon Trail where California transplants sought out new and better opportunities. Land!

We visited, my sister and I, in our late teenage years, it was our first independent plane flight and Ashley’s mom made sure we had a grand time: snow-boarding, new youth groups, dinner out, the toboggan run. By this time Ashley had turned into a little girl, who loved nuns and star wars. (I’m sure her husband is glad she gave up her determined ambition to take the habit). Her fair hair was longer, but her eyes were still blue, and she talked like a miniature grown-up.

I went to college, England, returned, and taught. I’d just began dating my now husband when I learned that Ashley was getting married. Married? Ashley? The little girl I baby-sat? Soon after, the beautiful, young bride announced that she was becoming a mother. Nine months later, Quincy Kercher came. The large blue eyes, on baby Quincy ruffled past memories of those other blue eyes.

I wouldn’t become a mother for another year, but how beautiful it was to see glimpses of the life of young Ashley as a mom. The little girl I knew had grown up. She had a daughter of her own.

Then when my own daughter was born, I realized there are strands that link mothers in solidarity both young and old. We are members of a group of keepers, determined to protect the little ones in our care. We desire to help them see, to watch them flourish, to teach them. To someday witness them grown up and serving God. 


I was pregnant when I last saw Ashley. A woman now, she was full of vivacity. Her hair, darkened, was stylishly done. And what a good mother she made.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Leaf

  A couple of weeks ago, I read “The Leaf by Niggle” aloud to five-year old Felicity. Since I was teaching on the story a few days later, I counted my inspiration to read-aloud as a double win towards homeschooling and teaching prep. Didn’t know that my five-year-old, would once again teach me.     Tolkien’s short story follows the life of a Niggle, a painter, who envisions a glorious tree, but only manages to paint leaves, a paltry homage to his vision. About half-way through the story Niggle is sent on a journey, presumably death. After some time in a dismal hospital and workhouse, a train takes him to a familiar green space. As he wanders, wonderingly, he discovers it. The tree. His tree.   Felicity turned to me as I read and she said with the joy of discovery in her voice,    “Mommy! Did God make his tree real?”   “Yes, Felicity. Yes, that is it. That is exactly it.”    Tolkien and Lewis both thought that fairy-tales and myths, those bear...
Post a Comment
Read more

Good Friday Reflections

Tonight, squished between my eldest two children, I read bedtime stories on my big bed—a move we made because my pregnant body filled up the whole toddler bed leaving no room for my story-ready children. We started with a book on friendship told from the perspective of a shy chipmunk who didn’t want to leave his mommy. Then we moved on to a story about Peteriffic building a block tower high into the sky. We finished with our Bible reading and knowing that we are in Holy Week I then showed my kids pictures of the Lord’s Supper and Good Friday. I told them that Jesus died so that everyone could be raised from the dead, and then, “Boom.” I was right in the middle of a conversation I wasn’t expecting to have on this ordinary bedtime, with late daylight streaming softly into my bedroom window.    “Will we all die, Mama?” asked Gabe, my three-year-old.    “Yes, but Jesus came so that we can live again. We will be raised from the dead—just like Him.”    “Will it b...
Post a Comment
Read more

Two Little Girls and a Bench

  It was one of those moments before dinner in which I could have easily moved into the busy rush of dinner, clean-up, and bed-time, when I was stopped in my tracks. Isabelle, with her round face, and bright eyes, and fifteen month strength, clamored onto a bench and made it apparent to me that she wanted to jump from its one foot height with the help of my hand. I obliged and a game began, a game that was immediately joined by Emmaline, her three-year old sister, who does everything with full abandon. Soon, I found myself holding two little hands as two little girls jumped off a bench in unison. What joy this moment held for them. Again. Repeat. They would have jumped as long as I allowed. Each little face starlit with the joy of leaving the earth for one brief moment in the company of one’s sister and one’s mommy.  Tonight I read in Chesterton’s Orthodoxy that, “Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want t...
Post a Comment
Read more