“I want my mommy, too,” the teacher replies. Is she making fun of him? Or admitting she is not in control of the situation? Or trying - failing in my eyes - to be empathetic?

“I wanna go home. I want my mommy.” Those words repeat themselves over and over in my mind as I continue swimming laps. Me, too, I think. I’d like someone to mother me instead of doing all the nurturing myself. But it won’t be my own mother doing it, that I know. I’ve finally truly become a member of the “sandwich” generation as my mother’s health has begun to fail. I’m the filling between the slices of bread, one side being my children, the other my mother. And lately the filling has been spread awfully thin. Thin enough that I wake up in the morning already feeling tired before the day has even begun. It is not the way I want to live. If this keeps up, I could begin to think I am getting old.

“I wanna go home.” But it isn’t there anymore. Only two small rooms, filled with some of the familiar pieces from my childhood, rooms where I can visit but cannot stay. My mom is there, but my pillar of strength, my dad, is gone. And I am alone in a way I’ve never been alone before.

“I wanna go home. I want my mommy.” But when you can’t, you wish your fears could be as easily soothed as the child’s down the way. The swimming instructor has taken the child in his arms and spoken softly to him. The boy’s tears had gone to whimpers and now I see just the ghost of a smile, a glimmer of newly found confidence. Oh, for the resilience of childhood.