The initial bend in the S-shaped street was behind us, meaning we were about halfway into our walk, but before we got to the next curve she was there, walking toward us, then paused beside us, rocking her stroller lightly.
She had stopped so I stopped, but she initiated the small talk. The how-old-is-your-baby and do-you-live-near-here questions.
My responses were short but polite. Friendly but not encouraging. Her baby – several months younger than my then 9-month-old – was asleep peacefully in the stroller. Mine was asleep as well, but looking at him gave me no feelings of peace. I knew enough to know that if we were stopped much longer he’d wake up, and that would be bad. I glared at the dog, willing him not to make any noises – the kind guaranteed to wake my child – indicating he wanted to keep walking.
So I kept the conversation light and short, then bade her farewell with a mention that I needed to keep walking so he’d keep sleeping.
What I didn’t tell her was that I needed him to keep sleeping. That we walked every day at this time because he refused to sleep otherwise and I had tried everything and getting him to sleep in his stroller was the only thing that was keeping me remotely sane. That sometimes, if he kept sleeping, I walked for hours, playing chicken with the line where a good nap turns into a nap that messes with bedtime.
I couldn’t tell her all this because at the time I thought I was the only one who panicked like that. Who would do anything to keep that stroller moving so he’d stay asleep and not wake up and start to fuss and flood my being with despair.
It’s been over three years since we met on the road that day. I never saw her again, but the other day I walked down that same stretch of road. I was with dog, but without stroller. Life has changed a lot since then, and yet some of those same feelings still remain in me. I also now know a lot more about how many women experience a rough start to motherhood. As I walked, I wondered if she was one of them.
I mentioned this to my husband, and questioned whether I would have uncovered something – something she needed, some sort of help, companionship, or even just an adult conversation – had my protective shield not been so firmly in place that day.
Maybe she saw something in you, he said. Maybe she sensed that you needed help.
Maybe.
There’s no way to know, so in that moment during my recent walk I just paused and thought of her – a sincere “sorry” if she were someone I could have helped had I known, and a dose of good thoughts for wherever her path along motherhood has taken her since.
