I was at a big-box retailer, just coming out of checkout.

There was a young dad sitting on a bench waiting for his wife. He was holding their little girl, an adorable little thing with long black curls, maybe 16 months old? Old enough to walk, too young to really talk but old enough to understand enough to surprise her parents from time to time. Mine did.

She was at that stage of exhaustion of a total screaming tantrum, arching her back hard as if to throw herself on the ground, knowing her daddy wouldn’t let her fall. She wanted her mommy and she wanted to go home and she wanted dinner and she wanted bed and she wanted it NOW.

Somehow, as I approached them, I managed to make eye contact with her; I focused on her, totally ignoring her father. I think that part was crucial to what happened next; she noticed. Still, this was unusual: just like adults, when little ones are upset, they don’t want to look you in the eye. But something caught hers and she saw me as I slowed down, thinking, what a cute child! I stopped just far enough away not to be too close and affirmed happily to her, as if I’d just run into an old friend, “Yeah. I’ve had days like that.”

She was immediately still. She looked back at me, eyes wide. I was smiling back. She eased down in slow motion into her daddy’s lap, put her thumb slowly up to her mouth, and looked up quite shyly at me but with a little smile now too. She was SO cute. My own smile got bigger.

And then it was her daddy’s turn; I gave him a quick glance, a smile and a nod as I turned to go. He was looking up at me too by then, with this, “Oh thank you. THANK you!” in his face.

His daughter watched me leave the store, waving bye-bye just before I stepped outside and out of their sight.

The whole scene took so few seconds out of my busy day to let happen. But I will never forget those two. They brought out the best in me, and I am grateful.

Every mom with small children gets told that just watch out, they’ll be horrible when they’re teenagers. (Why do people DO that? What good do they hope to accomplish?)

I am here to say, my children being in college and grad school now, that teenagers are wonderful and interesting people and I miss having them around keeping me on my toes: they make me think about why I’m doing what I’m doing and how to be better at it. And they themselves get better with each year. It’s very gratifying.

And that message, I like to think, is what this mom was seeing: looking at my son and his interactions with her family on an airplane and then, as she watched him with me, seeing her own small son and daughter’s future progressions.

He was coming home from college for the Christmas break and we were at the baggage claim area. I was at one side, he went to check out the other.

I knew nothing of their having been seated together. I just saw a young mom standing there waiting and waiting, exhausted, her three-year-old clinging to her leg as she was holding a very tired younger toddler who looked on the verge of losing it.

Hey. That’s an easy fix. I opened my purse. I needed two here; I only found one–well, you do what you can. Asking the mom’s permission rather than handing it straight to either kid, I gave her a bright pink intricately-handknit flamingo fingerpuppet for the children to be charmed by, hoping one more thing to hold wouldn’t be too much. With silent thanks to the unknown knitter in Peru. I buy these by the dozens, each one different, for just such moments.

The mom’s face totally lit up.

If you can make Mom happy, everybody gets happier.

My son told me on the way home that those kids had been tired and crying off and on during the flight, and he could sympathize with their wanting to be home and in bed and not understanding why they couldn’t have that yet. They were so cute! End of story. So he’d told her they were, he’d tried to jolly them out of their grumps, and whether they ever see him again or not he’d made friends for life on the spot.

I did not know at the time why she smiled at me as she looked at that fingerpuppet in her hand and then over to my son now on the far side of the conveyor belt; she was affirming–I had utterly no idea yet what.

But her kids were absolutely adorable.

Year: 1984, Baby #2. Scene: Toddler #1, a beautiful angel of a child up till then, had become  the instant proverbial Two Year Old (TM) now that she had competition for my attention. These screaming fists-pounding-the-floor temper tantrums? Where on earth had they come from?

And of course when she cried the baby cried in sympathy and pretty quickly we were all miserable while I tried to reason with her, hug her, scold her, time her out, anything, please make something work.

I heard from one mom much later that what she had done was to get down on the floor alongside her little kid and throw a no-holds-barred tantrum act herself, fists and feet flailing, making her kid stop and look at her like, Are you crazy? Why are you making this scene? In public!

But that was years in the future.

In tired new-mother desperation one day, I called my Mom.

Mom said, Offer to pour a glass of cold water on her head.

Me: Say what?

Mom: Offer to pour cold water on her head. A little cold water does wonders on tantrums. Trust me.

Note that she didn’t say to just pour it, she said to make it the child’s decision.

So then I was just waiting for my chance, curious to try it, and hoped it would come at a time at home where I had instant access to the tap.

It was. She did.

I smiled sweetly, totally knowing I could do this, and in my best loving-Mom voice asked, Sam? Would you like me to pour some cold water on your head?

NO! MILK!

Given who the clean-up crew would have been on that one, thanks, we’ll let that suggestion pass, and I quickly half-filled a cup at the sink. She screamed away and I poured out just a few drops into the top of her blonde curls–just enough to get her attention.

Instant end of tantrum while she assessed this new outcome. (Me: Wow! Magic!)

The next time she threw a major tantrum we were again, thankfully, at home, and I smiled and happily reiterated the offer.

End of screaming fit. Like flipping a switch.

After that I only had to offer I think once more ever.

She learned at the ripe old age of 27 months that she didn’t have to be controlled by rage but could stop. That she could respond instead to my being loving to her. It absolutely required I be at my best for it to work, and I wasn’t going to risk losing a foolproof method by fooling with it with a bad mood, but it let her be her best, too.

And I felt like the best Mom ever.

So, with a thousand thanks to my Mom and her wisdom, I pass the idea along.

I had a friend, growing up, who felt she was not supposed to come home with dirt on her clothes. A young lady was not to do that.

Which is how I learned early on to treasure my mother’s take on us after a good day down at the creek or in the woods in the back yard: she would give us an appraising look with a grin on her face and pronounce, “You must have had *fun* getting THAT dirty!”

She had this big bicycle horn she would raise high and honk to call us home from all over the neighborhood; all the other parents and children knew that sound too and if we didn’t hear it would tell us, Hey, you, your mom’s calling you.

We would hold back and go one at a time, going all out up the sloping street to Mom, especially in the summertime when the light continued for so long after dinner: run run running trying to pick up speed and at the end leaping up into her arms where she would swing us around and around and around on the grass, often till we were so dizzy we would fall down in delight when she let us down into the grass (or if that didn’t work, we’d go airplane our arms around and around afterwards till we made ourselves dizzy enough).  Just every now and then, she would fall down laughing too.

We learned we couldn’t be jealous and try to push ahead of the next kid–-Mom couldn’t catch two at once.   She was perfectly capable of turning her back and chirping cheerfully as she walked away, “Nope! Lost your chance!”  Awww, MOooooommmmm…”  We had to take turns.

Remembering the days, I used to do that with my kids. I had to give it up for awhile when my lupus was just too severe to try it, but to me it was an important part of childhood. Our California house didn’t have a front lawn to fall into, so my kids had to settle for the leap without the run and, often, the rug instead of the lawn. But you make do.

I wrote in my book, “Wrapped in Comfort,” about my friend Lisa who offered to trade off babysitting our preschoolers so I could do the indoor swim therapy that ended up helping my arthritis so much. She moved away when my youngest hit kindergarten; she went on to have one more child.

Several years later, she and her husband decided to take their family on the long drive to go tour the sights in Washington DC because that was when my family was going to be there for a wedding.

They joined us at my parents’ house for part of a day.

The sun was almost gone. You could see just enough out there.

Her little four year old didn’t quite get what was up until he was and then he and I were twirling around and around on the lawn till we (carefully) fell down dizzy.

His big brothers exulted, jumping up and down, cheering him on: NOW their little brother finally knew what their California life had been like. What their preschool memories were all about. Now he belonged to us too.

My children were 2, 4, 6, and 8 when I woke up one morning feeling as if I’d been hit by a truck in the night that had left every bone broken. It hurt to breathe; moving was excruciating. I was told I had systemic lupus. Ten years later they would add Crohn’s disease to that.

I had diapers to change, still, I got to watch my heart beating on a monitor, I could only eat with plastic forks. My hands were starting to deform from inflammation. I was used to race walking several miles every morning before my husband left for work, my time (not to mention endorphins) to myself to start the day, and suddenly my knees were shooting pain with each step and I was told I must completely avoid all sun exposure to try to tamp the disease down.

Wait–I’m allergic to *sunlight*?! How on earth was I supposed to raise four children, in a city no less with no park time? No explore the great outdoors together time? No go out and dig in the dirt with Mom time.

My mother told me her cousin had died young of lupus.

So much loss to deal with all at once, so much that none of us knew how to navigate through.

And yet.

There was a morning soon after when my littlest kept exulting, “MOMMY!” with such great joy every time he laid eyes on me over and over as if I’d been gone on a trip and he’d missed me, running to me and throwing his arms around my legs with such happiness. So endearing. Such love. By noon I suddenly realized in surprise that I was feeling no pain. How had that happened?

I didn’t know but I liked it.

Somehow, working through it together, we got through. Were there times we had no idea how we were going to cope? Absolutely. When things didn’t get done? All the time. But all the complications and all the flareups kept bringing us back to the basic truth that our simple presence matters. That love begets patience. It heals the pain.

My children all had the same kindergarten teacher; my second was in her class when all this started. By the fourth child, the woman pulled me aside to tell me my children were the most empathetic ones around and she wanted me to know that. They looked to see when someone needed help and offered it. They were aware of others for whom the day might be harder, and stepped forward for them rather than taking it personally. Not always, not perfectly, but with a wisdom and insight rare, much less in a five year old.

I remember my then-seven-year-old, unasked, offering an elderly relative an arm to lean on…

Has it been hard? Oh you bet. Was it worth it? I once would have answered, what choice did we have?

I think now, looking at the young adults my children have become 21 years later, I could only simply say, absolutely. Yes.