Let me set the stage:  I am exhausted.  I have been at my daughter's house all day.  I arrived at eight something in the morning and it is now getting on toward four-thirty.  Most Fridays I arrive a little before ten which is when my daughter, Anna, needs to be to work. I usually leave sometime between two-thirty and three.  Unlike other Friday's, today has included a third grandchild to care for; my son's little boy, Mason.

As I pull my coat around  my shoulders and sling my bag across my arm, I look down and see Heidi, the youngest of the three grandchildren.  Just a fifteen months old, she is more laid back, and quieter than the two older kids. She is standing looking up at me with big eyes.  Just next to her she has a box in which she has collected a few treasures.  As soon as we make eye contact, she solemnly begins to take the items out of the box one at a time:  a small ball, a piece of chalk, something I am not quite sure what it is, etc.  With each item I respond with a couple encouraging words.  She smiles.

AsI holler good-bye to the other household members, kiss Heidi on the cheek and turn to go, I wonder how long she had to wait to catch my full attention, unshared with the other children.  The whole exchange has been wordless and lasted only for a minute or two, three at the most. The memory of it stays for hours, days; the shy manner in which she presents each item, the growing excitement of shared experience as I exclaim over each one.  A mere moment in time, it could so easily have been missed or passed over, but instead leaves me filled with joy to the point of pain.