Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Old Ladies

I just got back from our morning walk. I let my son decide which trail we go on and today he chose to go around the golf course. About half way around the golf course we passed this older woman (in her 50s or 60s maybe?). She saw us coming and looked down at my kids in the stroller. She stopped, said "Hello Babies. Oh, are you so pretty, oh you are so pretty too". She softly caressed each of their cheeks. She looked up at me, said "oh they're beautiful". Then she made the sign of the cross on each of their foreheads and said "God Bless" to each of them. My children are very shy around strangers. It takes them a good 30 minutes to warm up to people they just met, so this whole time, they just looked at her without smiling or saying anything.

I don't know if she was hispanic or native american but it seems to me that grandma types of that origin are often nicer than caucasian grandmas. A friend of mine and I were talking about this one day. We decided we liked grandpas better than grandma types, and that we hoped that we would be nice grandma type people we got old. I remember a few months ago I went to The UPS Store to send a package. While I was filling out the form my son was looking at some birthday cards on a rack. He found one with cars all over it. He took the card out and showed it to me. I said "yes, thats very nice, it has cars on it, please go put it away now." While this was happening an old lady came into the store to make copies. He went over to her to show her the card with the cars on it. Instead of saying "Oh, thats very nice, it has cars on it." She said in a stern voice "Thats not yours, you need to put that away right now." I was shocked! First of all how dare this woman tell my son what to do. Second, how dare she crush his little heart by not even acknowledging his favorite thing. Cars!

I was beginning to think that all old women were like this. But the nice lady that blessed my babies today on the walking trail helped restore to me my faith in nice old ladies. And this wasn't even the first time my babies have been given the sign of the cross on their foreheads and told "God Bless" by a total stranger. Its happened in the grocery store by a really old (in her 90's maybe) woman once. Its sweet.
Posted by ABQ Mom :: 9/13/2005 10:54:00 AM :: 4 Comments:

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