That Face

She stretched her arms at the conference table, and I immediately thought of O. The way he wakes up in the morning and stretches his arms straight up, and his legs straight down. The way he then tucks his chin down and scrunches back his face and I want to watch him do that every day for the rest of my life. He makes so many great faces, but this is the one that makes me understand what it means to love.

And I wondered if her mother would watch her stretch her 40-year-old arms up, tuck her 40-year-old chin down, and still, 40 years later, think, "Now that is just the most crushingly precious face my daughter makes." Or does this feeling go away once they have jobs, and degrees, and kids of their own?

I nearly cried in that big boardroom, simply watching my colleague stretch. Because her mother wasn't there to hold her when she opened her eyes.