Childhood is a riveting, but fleeting, show

The Boston Globe

Beverly Beckham

This is what I tell myself as I watch a man not watch his child: Cut him some slack. Don't be judgmental. Maybe this is the one time of the week when he gets to sit and relax and read a newspaper.

Maybe the child in the pool playing by himself isn't even his. Maybe this middle-aged man is merely a friend of the boy's mother, keeping her company, doing her a favor, simply hanging out and not responsible for the boy in any way.

Besides, it is none of my business what this stranger does or doesn't do. Let it go, I think.

But I can't let it go. I keep glancing over at him as if by sheer will I can make him put down the paper and look up. "Hey, mister. You're missing the show," I think as hard as I can. "Whatever the Wall Street Journal is offering up as news today, I guarantee it isn't nearly as important as what's going on in front of you."

But he is as oblivious to my mind game as he is to the children in the water not 10 feet away, who are jumping and laughing and kicking and holding their breath and coming up for air.

I am at an indoor pool on a sunny spring morning because my granddaughter, Lucy, who is 4, is learning to swim, and Sarah, my goddaughter who is 30, is teaching her. Usually her mother takes Lucy to her lesson, but this day her mom and dad are away. So I have the privilege.

I confess that almost everything Lucy does makes me smile. And this day is no exception. She bounds into the pool, full of purpose, arms and legs pumping. She puts her face in the water and blows bubbles. She dunks her head and comes up shaking like a dog. She jumps off the side of the pool into Sarah's arms and paddles. And after doing this again and again and again, Sarah lets go and, for just a second, Lucy is swimming all by herself.

And my face hurts from smiling.

I understand that sitting in the audience is not for everyone. That children swim and dive and play soccer and dance and do gymnastics, and parents and grandparents don't always have to be in the front row grinning and applauding.

But a little applause helps everyone.

"Watch me, Mommy. Watch me!" each of my children shouted a hundred times, a million times, when they were small, from the pool, from the playground, from the parallel bars and swings, while riding the waves at Nauset Beach, while roller skating in circles at a rink in Norwood, while ice skating across New Pond. "Watch me!"

And I would think, sometimes, many times, if only I could not watch for a little while. If only I could finish reading a book. If only I could complete a conversation. If only they didn't need me so much.

And then they didn't need me. And I got to read books and finish conversations.

What books, I wonder now? What conversations were more important than rating handstands in the pool and counting to see who could stay under water the longest? I recall a few titles and authors but entire plots are gone. And as for what movies were popular? What people? What theories? What was going on in the world when my children were 4 and 8 and 10? I haven't a clue.

But I will never forget watching my daughters at dancing school; and my son learning to play baseball, fielding a ball, running the bases, kicking the dirt the way the big boys did every time he struck out; and the Christmas pageants, plays, talent shows, and Wiffle ball games.

"Watch me," the boy swimming alone never said. He just swam and the mother watched and the man read. And when it was over, the man folded the paper, stood up and left, having no idea of all he missed.