That's What A Mother Does

I've been working hard to get a good "working relationship" trust between me and the kid I tutor.  Today during the "small talk" part of the lesson I told him how I go to watch my son play tackle football, even though I don't enjoy the game and feel sick everytime I see him in one of those pile-ups or whatever they're called.

"That's what a mother does." I told him.  "Would your mother go to see you play a sport she didn't like, just because you're playing."
"Yes," he replied.

Being a mother sometimes is a lot tougher than watching your baby play tackle football.  When that same football player was two weeks old he had a very serious infection, osteomeilitis.  To be cured he had to get antibiotics IV for six weeks, so we (my baby and I) "moved into" Shaare Tzedek Hospital for that time.  All sorts of people helped out, taking care of my other kids and also watching him so I could get home daily for a few hours.  I don't even know most of them, since a neighbor did all the organizing and I had made one condition:

"Nobody from Shiloh should go to the hospital to be with him.  There's enough to do at home.  It's bad enough that I have to be away."

A good friend, from Jerusalem, took a double shift every week.  A neighbor who then taught in Pardes and told them the story of the great חסד chessed happening.  One of his students insisted on volunteering, too.  The nurses were amazed when this young man with a pony tail showed up and then admitted that he had never ever held a baby before and really hadn't the vaguest idea what to do.  They taught him.

Why am I suddenly writing this?  That's because when I was waiting for tonight's bus I saw someone whose baby has very recently been hospitalized in serious condition.  I went over to speak to her and all the old memories came flooding out as if it had just happened last week, or even yesterday.  I was shaking and close to tears even worse than all those years ago.

Yes, that, too is what a mother does...