With hurricane force, the emotion returned. Wrapping her arms around Callie, Lil inhaled the scent of her granddaughter’s hair and wondered at the simplicity of the moment. Raising her own three children had been a time consuming endeavor. She hadn’t rocked away one precious moment or wasted any time smelling a freshly washed head of hair. There were always more important considerations needing her attention. Now, at forty-five years of age, the weight of her failure sat squarely on her shoulders. 

Determined to enjoy the quiet moment, Lil closed her eyes and continued to rock. It was a small pleasure, but a pleasure just the same. There had been so few of them along the way. The steady sound of the toddler’s breathing, and the limp weight of her sleeping body, brought Lil a comfort she’d struggled to find all her life. Tears pricked at her eyes. She blinked them back. Lil never cried. 

When Tom, her husband of twenty-seven years, walked out of her life, the parting, like the marriage, was, at least on her part, civil. She gathered up her dignity, wished him luck, and stuck out her hand to show her sincerity. It seemed appropriate. Her husband had brushed her hand away and hugged her. It left her unsettled. Such displays of affection were usually reserved for the bedroom. Tom left in a torrent of tears. Lil stood with dry eyes and watched him go. He’d only been gone for twelve hours, but she knew he was gone for good. Tom wasn’t one to make a rash decision. After he left, Lil found it hard to concentrate and looked for an activity to keep herself busy. The storage space in the basement was the only part of the house that needed tending to. She rolled up her sleeves and organized the clutter. 

The old rocker was hidden under a pile of boxes. It had belonged to her mother-in-law. Lil had no need for it, but Tom wouldn’t let her throw it out. Now that he was gone, there was no reason to keep it. She dragged it up the stairs and put it by the back door. He could take it when he came back for the rest of his things.  

Her children called to see how their mother was handling the situation. Tom had obviously discussed his departure with them. Sharon, their youngest, hung up in disgust when Lil ignored her inquiry and took the opportunity to ask her daughter if she was planning on returning to school in the fall. Joe, their middle child, cut her off in mid sentence when she started to question his employment status. His stinging rebuttal left Lil wondering why he had called in the first place. Sylvie, their oldest, wasn’t as dramatic as the first two. When Lil said she was fine, Sylvie took her at her word, dropped the subject, and went on to a more pressing matter. Work had called and offered her an overtime shift. Her baby-sitter was unavailable on the weekend and she needed her mother to watch Callie. Lil, encouraged by her daughter’s spark of ambition, readily agreed. It wasn’t until she hung up the phone that she worried about what she was going to do with the child. Between her job as the Regional Manager of a popular clothing chain, housecleaning, self improvement classes and regular workouts at the local gym, Lil had very little time for her granddaughter. Her contact with Callie had been minimal. Tom did some occasional baby-sitting, but Lil chose to observe, rather than participate in her granddaughter’s upbringing. She hadn’t succeeded at child-rearing the first time around and was reluctant to have a hand in the development of the next generation.  

A quick visit to the office, a little grocery shopping, and a stop at an educational book store, was all Lil managed to accomplish before the scheduled arrival of her granddaughter. Lil stood off to one side and watched her daughter and granddaughter bid each other a tearful goodbye. The emotion didn’t fit the occasion, but for the sake of decorum, and Sylvie’s obvious disregard for punctuality, Lil kept her mouth shut. 

A consummate planner, Lil organized the evening by breaking it down into half hour segments. Each activity involved an educational lesson. Callie had other plans. From the moment the little girl spotted the rocking chair, she couldn’t be persuaded to pay attention to anything else. The child’s impertinence was exhausting. Lil gave in, brought the rocker into the living room, and sat down in it. It took Callie all of two seconds to climb up onto her grandmother’s lap. Unsure of what to do, but willing to give it a try, Lil started to rock. Callie wriggled around and refused to sit still. Lil’s nerves started to grate. She was at the point of giving up when Callie asked for chocolate toast. 

The last time the child had been over to the house, Lil hadn’t paid much attention when the toddler referred to the pumpernickel bread as "chocolate toast". While Tom was busy whipping up toast, scrambled eggs, and bacon, Lil tried to teach Callie to count to ten. The child was sitting at the table doing nothing. Lil wanted her to be constructive with her time. But it wasn’t the counting that the child remembered, it was the chocolate toast. Lil thanked God that she too had remembered. 

Callie squealed with delight when Lil promised to make chocolate toast in the morning. Snuggling up close to her grandmother, she closed her eyes and went to sleep. A little bribery. It was that easy. The thought of it made Lil smile. It was such a simple promise, and for one lucid moment, Lil saw the simplicity as the key to the pleasure of the moment. The center of her complicated life was as stormy as the whirlwind of problems and aggravations that swirled around her. Without the luxury of relaxation to fall back on, Lil kept her mind, her hands, or her body, productive at all times. Moving forward, striving, reaching. "My God," she thought. "What was I looking for?" 

A strong will and misplaced determination had directed her life down a straight and narrow path. Righting the wrongs of an unhappy childhood kept her from stopping at any crossroads along the way. The shining rewards at the end of the road left her no time to forage down unknown trails. The vicious cycle of poverty that dominated her childhood was broken when her children came along. She didn’t want them feeling the same embarrassment she felt while growing up. Schoolmates were cruel. Their brutal honesty a battering ram to a person wearing the wrong clothes and bearing the shame of little self worth. With no time for sentimental nonsense, Lil set the course of her life. Each rung she climbed on the corporate ladder, meant better clothes for the kids, dance lessons, riding lessons, hockey equipment, a dirt bike, piano lessons, and a piano. Those things were followed by cars, tuitions, and respectable places for her children to live. The list was never-ending. She was busy living life. It hadn’t occurred to her to stop and enjoy it. 

Somewhere, somehow, something had gone terribly wrong. Instead of delighting in the fruits of her children’s successes, confusion and frustration dominated her days. Her offspring were always in one stage of crisis or another. They were beyond her comprehension. Their foolish decisions and senseless choices made a mockery out of the twenty-five years she spent providing for them. Twenty-five years. More than half of her life.  

The feel of the sleeping child against her weary body unleashed a powerful flood of emotions. She let the feeling ebb and flow. It hurt and it healed. Callie slept, undisturbed and unaware of the change taking place. The original plan had been to rush the child off to bed as soon as she fell asleep. Now the thought of separation was almost unbearable. "I wouldn’t have entertained such a silly notion when I was younger," she thought. "Sitting and listening to the sound of a child breathing, when there was laundry to do, dishes to clean, and a million specks of dust calling my name, wouldn’t have made much sense to me back then. If wisdom comes with age, I still have a lot of wising up to do. How in the world did I associate household chores with any kind of importance?" She couldn’t think of anything more important than what she was doing at that very moment.  

The realization brought sadness. She had missed the whole point of parenting and unwittingly made the same mistakes her parents made. She had tried so hard and was always so tired. All those years, all her time and energy, hadn’t changed a thing. The next generation of her family was no better off than the last.  

Harsh memories crowded her mind. When the children were babies she couldn’t wait for them to talk. Once they talked she couldn’t wait for them to walk. Once they were walking and talking she couldn’t wait for them to start school. She never once wished they’d stay a certain age or remain at a certain phase in time. "I was such an idiot," she thought. "Why did it take me forty-five years to grow up." 

Tears spilled from her eyes and landed on the top of Callie’s head. "I love you," she whispered. It was the first time she had spoken those words outside of her marital bed. "I’ve got a lot of hugs and kisses and cuddling inside of me dear child. They’ve always been there, I just didn’t know I had them until now. I’ve got so many mushy words stored up inside of me you’ll probably get sick of hearing me talk. But that’s okay. It’s better than not knowing just how important a person you are, and how much I love you." 

Lil continued to rock. She practiced saying the words she should have said to her own children. Maybe there was still time. If she got comfortable saying them to her granddaughter, maybe she would be brave enough to say them to her grownup children.  

"You, my precious wonder, are a beacon of hope. I will always help you maintain the window to your soul. Your light will shine through it, pure and bright. One day you will find the purpose for your existence, the reason you were put here on earth. And I will be right beside you, proud to have witnessed your journey. I will encourage you to take many paths. Some we will travel together, others you will walk alone. There will be golden treasures and dead ends. Either way, you will be a stronger person for having the courage to seek out the unknown, and a wiser person for knowing that all things are not found on a straight and narrow path." 

Callie stirred in her sleep. Lil made a shushing sound. The little girl snuggled up tighter to her grandmother and continued to dream. Lil relaxed and made a mental list of priorities for the following day. It was a routine she had followed for years. It kept her on track and on top of things. The structure of the list was familiar, but it’s content was foreign and impractical. Anyone who knew her would be surprised at the lack of strategy attached to it. Sitting at the top of the list, first and foremost, was pumpernickel bread. The second item was a bold question mark. Lil laughed to herself. The question mark was a secret she would share with only one person. Her granddaughter. After a breakfast of chocolate toast, anything was possible.