Around and About with Richard McCarthy: A small act of great love: A story of strollers and waiting rooms

By RICHARD MCCARTHY

For the Gazette

Published: 12-15-2024 11:17 PM

Recently I had an appointment with my primary care provider, and after checking in with the receptionist, I looked to find a seat in the waiting room.

One of the only seats available was perpendicular to a young woman with a child about 5 or 6 months old in a stroller next to her.

The child was facing me, and like so many of us do almost reflexively, I gave it a big smiling wave as I sat down. This gesture brought a neutral stare from the child and an affirming smile from the mother.

Then the mother adjusted the stroller so the child’s back was to me. She did so in a subtle manner, wanting to give no offense to me. She was protecting her child from any germs I might be carrying to a doctor visit.

It was a mother of a different sort, Mother Teresa, who said, “Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” What I’d just witnessed, the repositioning of a stroller to protect a child, was such a small act of great love.

I often say I seek to write about “the depth charges that come to the surface of everyday life.” Regardless of the cataclysms that transpire in the encircling world, be they natural, socio-political or whatever, I look for stories in the nooks and crannies of being human. And what is at the heart of humanness more than a parent acting upon their love for their child.

As I sat in the waiting room, I found myself thinking of an Irish ballad, “A Mother’s Love is a Blessing.” A friend of mine, now passed away, was brought up alternately staying at his emotionally unavailable father’s house and an orphanage, with no mother in the picture. Sometimes if he had enough brews in him, he would be inspired to stand up and dramatically croon that song to all within earshot. Those of us who knew the circumstances of his upbringing understood the irony he intended in doing so, but his performance was nonetheless quite moving. In my case, the lyrics of the ballad were true to my experience of childhood.

Then I found myself thinking about how there would come a time when there would be no stroller, literally or figuratively, that could be rearranged to protect that child in the waiting room from the harsh realities which are baked into life and the whirling mass of imperfection that lives it.

I left that somewhat dark rumination, and found myself chuckling internally (one must not be seen laughing for no apparent reason) at the vision of that child as a teenager, acting for all the world as if it was brought up feral, “raised by wolves,” as it were, no strollers involved.

My reflections were put to an abrupt end by the mother being called for her appointment. I watched her disappear down a hallway, pushing the stroller ahead of her.

And then, after a few moments savoring the sight and memory of a parent’s love, I looked around and about the waiting room to see if anyone else had a story to tell me.

Amherst resident Richard McCarthy, a longtime columnist at the Springfield Republican, writes a monthly column for the Gazette.