The Interesting Path

I stood at the park last night pushing my youngest on the swings as the sun slowly set.  It was one of those idyllic moments I want to hang onto forever, but I know will quickly fade from my memory.  I hollered at my two youngest boys as they scaled the play equipment and sighed deeply in the contentment of the moment.

The mom next to me just stared at me.  I could feel her watching every movement I made, as I tried hard to ignore her stare.  It was the park, and for one brief break in my schedule, it was me and my babies. Why was she watching me?  This cute young mom with her adorable baby…and she was staring at me and not that adorable smiling face?

After what seemed to be a thousand years, as only pushing children on the swings can seem, I carried #7 to the grassy area and let her crawl around.   The mom from the swings followed me and put her own daughter down next to mine.

“Is it okay if I let her play with your baby?” She asked me nervously.

As I looked her square in the face for the first time, I saw how breathtakingly young she was.  If she was older than 20 is wasn’t by much.  She just stood there looking young and nervous as though I was going to scold her for merely being.

At a loss for what to say, I finally asked her “How old is the baby?”

“10 months.” She answered. “My boys are over there — they’re 5 and 3.”

“You must have been a baby when they were born.” I told her.  “You look so young.”

She stopped for a moment and stared at the ground, biting her lip.  When at last she looked up she said “The oldest was born a week after my 17th birthday.”  Her eyes welled up for a moment as she waited for me to say something.

“That must have been hard.” I told her.

She sighed with relief.  “Yeah.  We got married when we turned 18.  Our moms said we were ruining our lives, but all I wanted was him and the babies.  It’s just…” She trailed off.

I waited a moment and she continued.  “All of our friends are graduating from college this year.  I don’t regret them for a minute.  I just wonder…what if…”

“What if they had come later?” I volunteered.

She nodded.  “Is that awful?  I sometimes daydream about where I would be if they weren’t here. There are so many things I could have been and now I’m just a mom.”

It took everything in me to not hug her in that moment.  “It will be fine.” I told her.  “You can still dream dreams for you.  You can still be whatever that dream is.  If it’s a mom, that’s a great thing.  If it’s a mom plus something else, that’s great, too.  Many of my friends and I were young moms.  Some of us went to college, others didn’t.  Most of us didn’t graduate.  We are all a good 15 years from where you are now.  Let me tell you, it was worth it.  The sacrifice and the hard work and the love and the children were all worth it.”

“No one ever says that.” She sniffed.  “No one ever says that it’s going to be okay.  They just act like we’ve made a mistake that can’t be erased and then judge us like we’re bad.”

I finally wrapped my arms around her and hugged her tight.  My heart broke for this woman who was judged so harshly for falling in love, an outcast for having babies.

“It will be okay.” I whispered to her.  “You’re not bad.  Getting married and having a family isn’t wrong.   Being different isn’t wrong.  It’s just different.  Some people just aren’t smart enough to see that.”

She stepped back and looked at me. “So my life isn’t over?” She laughed as she wiped her eyes.

“Nope.” I told her.  “Your life didn’t end in the delivery room.  It just took a more interesting path.”