Her voice was rough and gravelly, her face deeply etched, and I remember she mentioned great-grandchildren at some point in our conversation so I assume she has been around for a while. As we shared a park bench today she told me a little about her life. How the year and half she spent working when her daughter was small left her crying because the babysitter was the only one who could understand what the toddler was trying to say. How she looks back and is so glad she spent all those other years raising her children. "I just wish I had played with them more," she reminisced as she watched Aimée climbing and sliding in endless succession.
I ponder those words now. Not spoken with regret so much as an honest recounting of the past. She has let her mistakes go as part of history that cannot be changed. And she can strengthen my own resolve through her story. Because as she said several times: "Children don't need all the extra things we can buy them, they need us to play with them."
