be with me
She walks in just as I slide my weary bones down into the water, just as the steam curls up over my knees and I give thanks for simple pleasures I know full well that some do without—hot, clean water flowing by the gallons at the twist of a knob; sweet-smelling soap.
Hi, she says and smiles at me, padding across the bathroom tile in footy pajamas made of bright green fleece. Silly monkeys with curly tales and wide grins swing through the print—over her shoulders, down her legs, across her delicate arms. She slides her feet in front of her one by one, experimenting with the way the rubbery bottoms resist the movement. She gathers her long, brassy hair with one hand; lifts it up; lets it fall in shiny lengths across her shoulders.
“Hi,” I say, offering her a smile in return as I pump shampoo into my hand, as I gather up the sight of her for safe keeping. I still remember when I walked around my parents’ home—still my home then, too—in soft pajamas and morning hair; I remember doing that the day of I got married, and thinking, this will never feel exactly this way again. It wasn’t a melancholy observation anymore than I am melancholy over the fact that she’ll grow up, that one day she’ll not stand there twirling while I take a bath. It’s good to recognize life as a fleeting deliciousness worth savoring, honest to acknowledge that the sweetness melts as it is tasted, if only to leave room for more. I wonder if she needs something of me, but resist the urge to ask, lest I suggest that she has to want something to approach me.
“You know…I really like these pajamas,” she says, just that, a part of a conversation we started weeks ago when she pulled them out of a box I’d saved for her. She had not been sure about them at first glimpse, had wondered if they’d be too warm, too big, maybe even too young.
“I told you it’s like wearing a blanket.” I grin at her, trying to remember to scrub my scalp with the pads of my fingers instead of with my fingernails.
She nods, plopping down on the floor as much next to me as she can be, pressing her back against the wall, hugging her knees to her chest. She scans the ceiling with her bright eyes, content just to sit close, and I realize then that she has no particular need except one very important one—to be with me. And for a while, we say nothing. I rinse my hair and lift a washcloth to my face, and she smiles at me and curls up warm. No time or agenda or to do list presses. Today, she can simply be. I was like that too as a girl, happy just to be with my mom, content just to be close to her, and yet the grace of it still stuns me, that just being together—being with me—is enough for her. It’s one of the greatest gifts I know, that I get to be that person in the lives of my children, that nearness to me brings them peace.
But I confess that I am not always so grateful for nor so in awe of this gift. Sometimes, in weary, wild-eyed mama moments, I cry out for a space I don’t really wish to have. I get overwhelmed with the recognition of my own inadequacy, with the significance of my responsibilities, and I spit out complaints I don’t even fully understand. But beneath my words is always the prayer for more of Him, more of His grace, more of Him with me.
Today, this is His grace to me: that I am able to hold the simplicity of the moment in my open hands like fragile soap bubbles bending the light in iridescent arcs; that this time, I am wise enough to enjoy her satisfied ease, to find wonder in the fact that she could be doing anything but chooses just to sit with me. I sink deeper into the water, into the steam, feeling the glorious tenderness of joy, and a new wonder captures me and inspires me to be a child again. I am taken with how easily she approaches me; how haphazardly and recklessly and plainly she speaks; how she knows not to overcomplicate her need just to be near, and I can’t help but wonder why we sometimes make such a challenge out of prayer. Sometimes I fail to see that it’s enough just to be with father God, just to sit as close to Him as I can get, just to add a comment to a conversation we started long ago. Sometimes I make prayer a construction instead of a conversation, a dwelling, a being with Him. Sometimes I act as though I have to want something from God—and I always want something—to approach Him. I think that’s when I get confused about prayer never ceasing, as though He means for me to live life in one run-on sentence punctuated randomly by amen. But lately, I’ve come to understand that what He wants from me is something more like these mother-daughter moments, something more like me finding fulfillment just by being with Him, whether we’re talking or just sitting in companionable quiet. Because the truth is that the conversations between a mother and her children really never end. The words merely trickle and stream and sometimes desperately pour through moments—breaths—we inhabit together.
