Ding-a-ling

This morning I was back at the flying buns and racing sausages place.  It wasn't nearly as entertaining.  Coincidentally, I was there once again for funeral provisions.  When you know a great lot of people that you love with your heart, you witness a lot of people facing the end and then have funerals to attend.  But I'd never for an instant wish I didn't have to experience the loss and pain of losing loved ones.  Because their lives make us richer.  In life and in death.

So I am meandering through the aisles getting the necessary goods.  I soon realize that a lot of people are on their cell phones.  I heard about the plans for a dinner party.  I heard a lady arguing with whom I assumed was her husband about the kind of mixed nuts to buy and how many.  And I watched a few mothers with young ones.  Talking and talking away while their little one, two, or three year-olds were just listening.  Sitting utterly bored.  Or fussing.  And the mothers kept talking on their cells.

One I watched in particular chatted on and on and on.  I know this as she was shadowing me through the store.  She had an adorable little boy about two and a baby that I have no clue what age since it was in a car seat with the flap closed on top.  We both leave approximately at the same time.  She gets off the phone just long enough to put her goods in the trunk of her car and as soon as she sat down, she pulled out that phone again and started to text or call someone again.  It looked very sad to me.

When our many young people here were wee things, we had a cell phone.  Mind you it was a big one.  With no texting ability.  And we used it very rarely.  Times have changed and I must admit, I have too.  I enjoy a text message.  I call others more frequently.  Why not?  It's nearly free.  But back to the point at hand.  When our babies were old enough to flip around to face forward, I remember lots and lots of trips pointing out stuff going by.  Looking in the rear-view mirror and seeing rapture on a face.  Listening to babble.  Seeing them interact in their baby ways with their siblings.  And if the ruckus got too great, turning on Raffi or Elmo and singing at the top of our lungs.  I cherish those memories.  The 'baby' is only 8 and I miss it already - those precious toddler years where you have all the answers and the world is new.  It is sad to see some moms that chatter about what so-and-so said in nauseating detail (sometimes with a bad word or two interjected in there) while their kids sit there in an emotionally lonely state.  Maybe they don't do it all the time.  But I sure see it more than I used to.  I wasn't a perfect mom.  I'm still not.  But mom's need to be there to listen.  To teach.  And to share in life.  Even if it is at some place as mundane as a big box warehouse store or driving down a familiar road.

(excuse me while i get off the soapbox again...)