Really Neat Thing

I was walking through the hallway that winds past the office of the man who owns the company I work for today, and as I turned the corner and passed his secretary’s office I heard “How are you doing, Barb?” I backed up and peeked my head into her office and said I was hanging in there. She pushed her chair away from her computer and ran her hand through her thinning red-gray hair. I told her this 3^rd trimester was more challenging than I expected.

“It’s worth it,” she said.

I told her I am sore most of the time and I really can’t ever get comfortable enough to sleep.

“Now when are you due? Soon right?”

I told her 6 weeks. 6 weeks from yesterday. 5 weeks and 6 days from today. 41 days.

She told me it would go fast, and I told her I wish it would go faster, that I haven’t slept for a week.

“You’ll never sleep again,” she said. “But it’s worth it. It’s so worth it.”

“That’s what I hear,” I said. “Which is why I did this.”

She knows my story. Somehow through the grapevine at work she’s one of the people who has gotten the right story, the story about how I made a conscious choice to make a baby as a single mother because I was turning 40 and running out of very precious time to start my family. (As opposed to the guy who sits three cubicles down from me who has heard a different grapevine story and had the nerve to ask one of our sales people if HE was the father of my baby.)

“I admire you so much,” she said. “I think you’re doing a really neat thing.”

I walk past Julie’s office all the time on my way from my office to the offices up front, and I see her candy jar filled with chocolates and I always think about taking a Reese’s or a Snickers. But I don’t really know her and I don’t want to disturb her, don’t want her to think I’m just a candy hog. But I think from now on I will peek my head in and say hi, whether I take a piece of candy or not.

“Thank you,” I said. “That really means a lot.” And I meant it.

It’s amazing what a little kindness from a stranger can do when you’re exhausted and sore and lonely and wondering how you are possibly going to manage to get through another 5 weeks and 6 days without anyone to rub your feet or massage your back or make you a cup of chamomile tea before bed. It’s amazing how the kindness of a stranger can make you realize that you can do just about anything.