Ana's Essay Draft: Finding Love for Another's Children

“What you do to children matters. And they might never forget.”

—Toni Morrison

I never knew watching three children during summer would have such an impact on me, but it did. They became children I learned to love, despite their difficult times. I especially came to love the three-year-old, as I spent the most time with him. (He only had to go to preschool once a week.)

Maxwell, the three-year-old, and I instantly had a connection. He had enough energy to run five miles without taking a break. I wouldn’t be surprised if in one hour, he ran five miles inside the house.

He would reach up to grab my hand whenever he wanted to go somewhere. “Ana, come.” He would say. Even though he always went places alone in the house, as long as I was there, he needed me to go with him.

After a while of watching him, he started asking, “Mom, can you play –.” As my time with Maxwell was coming to a close, he started calling me mom, and his older brother had to correct him. Maxwell would respond, “She’s my second mom.” All I could do was smile, even though I knew the truth. It was hard to correct him—after all, he was only three.

In August, Arizona was in the middle of monsoon season. It would rain in the middle of the day, even though the day started out with few clouds in the sky. Maxwell loved the rain. Even more, he loved to play in the muddy puddles.

Nothing can compare to the smell of rain after an Arizona rainstorm. Many people don’t think rain has a smell, but rain does have a smell in Arizona. Sometimes I miss the smell of a yard after it’s been mowed, but, after monsoon season, I desire the smell of rain once more.

Because of the uneven levels of dirt in Maxwell’s backyard, his huge mud puddles were waiting for us. He had a tiny Step 2 water table that was always filled with water. That was one of the reasons he loved the rain so much.

On an afternoon, after the rainstorm had stopped, he pulled my hand in the direction of the back door, to signal it was time to play outside. He told me to gather rocks (his attempt was to gather all the boulders I could carry, but I thought it was safer to look for pebbles instead). After gathering close to ten, Maxwell would throw them into his water table, turning the rainwater into a dark-colored mess. He would place his hands in the water, until they touched the bottom, and would ask me, “Can you see my hands?” I would tell him no most of the time. After a while, I began to tell him yes. Frustrated, he would shake his head and bang one of his hands on his forehead. Then he would move his hands around in the water to see if there was another position that would make his hands “disappear.”

When he was sick of the muddy water, he would ask me to fill it up again with the hose. To his request, I told him to play in the water he already had at his disposal. When I didn’t do what he wanted, he decided to play in the muddy puddles in different areas of the yard. “As long as you only get your hands wet,” I would tell him. However, being the three-year-old that he was, he decided to go big or go home. The next thing I knew, I had to change him out of his now-mucky clothes. Even though I tried to keep the house as clean as possible, he left a trail of footprints on the hardwood floor before I had time to come back with a clean outfit.

My time with the children was coming to a close. Maxwell had a keen sense of sound. During one particular evening, when Maxwell’s dad was returning from work, and as Maxwell heard the front door beginning to unlock, he placed his paw patrol figurines down, next to his giant PJ Masks house (which he referred to as “PJ Maxwell”) he would frequently play with. As soon as the toys were out of his lap, he bolted to the door to throw himself onto his dad.

His dad would tell the kids to say goodbye to me before I would leave. On one occasion, Maxwell cried, “Ana, don’t go! We still have to play!” To spend more time with me, he asked his dad if they could get “the packages,” which he was obsessed with; In other words, the mail. Their mailbox was on the way to my house—I would walk home, if the weather was bright and sunny, as I only lived a block away. With a smile on his face, Maxwell not only got to spend a little more time with me, but also peek into the mailbox. He hoped he could walk farther, so he could come home with me, but his dad had to redirection him.

After I left to attend school at BYU, I received a text from Maxwell’s dad, telling me how much Maxwell missed me. At the moment, all I could think about was how much I missed him to. I couldn’t believe a three-year-old still remembered his playmate.