Example

There's this girl on Alyssa's bus, she looks like she's maybe 14. She looks like a typical, sullen teenager. She sort of sneers at my every morning as I walk Alyssa to the end of the driveway and wait until the bus pulls away before turning and walking back to the house.

She might not be sneering, actually. That may just be the way her face is. She is a teenager, afterall.

Yes, I do actually still walk Alyssa to the bus each morning.

Why? Because she lets me.

I know this won't last and I love that she still wants me around. I love that she still finds comfort in my presence.

Heck, I still find comfort in my own mother's presence. She was in the delivery room when Alyssa was born. My mom was on the my left side, Tom was on my right. Tom was the one who told me Alyssa was a girl and my mom was the one who told me she looks like her daddy.

I know there is a big possibility that at some point in the next few years that my presense will annoy Alyssa more than it comforts her.

So I take what I can get now and store it away for those weeks, months, years when she's pushing me away.

So this teenager on the bus. The sneery one.

I take comfort in her too. Weird, huh?

Maybe not so much.

See, I imagine her thinking every single day, "That stupid mom, why is she walking her second grader to the bus? Does she think her kid is a baby or something? Whatever."

Yes, I hear the sneer in my head too.

I then imagine her thinking back to her days in second grade, when she was still little but thought she was so big. When she walked to the bus each morning by herself because either the house was really close to the road and it was no big deal or her mom worked and couldn't walk her to the bus.

Whatever the reason, I imagine this girl, this teenager, wistfully wishing someone had walked her to the bus when she was eight. And I think of her filing this away in her subconscious, this random mom walking her 'big' kid to the bus every day.

Someday, this girl, this sullen teenager whom I imagine sneering at me as I stand there in my office attire, walking my child to the bus, this girl is going to be a mother. And her child will attend school as some point.

And I think that this girl might remember me walking Alyssa to the bus and she might decide, when her child is eight that maybe eight is still little. Maybe eight still needs her mom to walk quietly, solidly behind her as she heads to get on the bus.

And I smile. I like that I'm setting an example for this stranger, this girl who migth someday walk her child to the bus simply because I walk mine to the bus every day, watching, waiting, waving as the bus rolls out of sight.