What a change...

Day 41

Father and son. Father and son. Father and daughter. Mother and daughter. Mother and son. I’m walking on the beach on Saturday morning and I’m passed by parents and children again and again as they ride their bikes in the morning sunshine. Passing by the playground a dad is pushing his daughter gently as she screams getting higher and higher. A mom is helping her son unwrap a candy bar and a grandma sits on the bench watching just like me. What I notice is not how many pairs I pass, but what the children have done to transform their parents. They’re no longer the woman who cut me in line at the market, they’re no longer the policeman telling me they’re closed for siesta and can’t help me get a residence card, and they’re no longer the motorbike riders that honk at me for taking too long to cross the street. They’re tender, caring, loving and dare I say patient. For as much as I gripe about the people of Spain, I’m enamored by the family vignettes I pass by on my walks. A man opens a door and I edge by to see him reach in to unbuckle his sleeping daughter from her car seat, cooing softly to her as he holds her against his chest. The parents are love itself. And I wonder if this person was there all along. They have remarkable tenderness, such sweet and encouraging remarks, and the attentiveness of unconditional compassion. I can’t begrudge them for favoring their own because my heart is already melting at seeing their interactions. If they can’t direct such love towards me I’m glad the children are receiving it all. Lord knows they save NONE of it for foreigners.

But some parents aren’t so wonderful. They partake in quite a popular form of child cruelty. I call it the matching outfit. And they do it across genders occasionally. And they seem to have a silent competition for dressing their children in the ugliest dress possible. Each family tries to beat the next. Look, all my children are in blue and white paisley, with bows bigger than their heads. Yes, even my son. But look , they match! It’s terrible. I don’t understand this trend at all. Little military lines of children holding hands, connecting the same dress across three little bodies, follow their parents through the park, parading their match-i-ness. And I can only furl my brow and purse my lips in disgust.

Not being a parent myself, I wonder if the secret of loving a child so tenderly comes with the instruction manual when they’re born. I venture to say that unconditional love is something found universally and that comforts me. But what is it about seeing your own child running towards you that gives parents that special smile the rest of the world can only wonder about.

I hope someone is gazing upon YOU lovingly.