I will not forget that Wednesday’s evening - the day I followed my son’s footsteps quietly from a distance. He was so enthralled by the beautiful fine sand and the evening sunset that he was totally absorbed by it. Maybe it was a new place to him. Or, maybe he had never seen such a beautiful sight. In any case, I had never seen him like this before: walking towards the shoreline industriously without looking back for me.

I must admit I too was captivated, not by the beautiful sunset, but by the footprints that were fashioned on the fine sand.

At that instance, I suddenly remembered a book I read many years back.

It was about a mother who climbed the 268 steps of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. At each level, the mother stopped, caught her breath, and peered out towards the Atlantic Ocean. At each level, the tired mother looked through small portals, or windows, set in the cylindrical brick structure. Each window offers a different view, and the closer the mother came to the top, the more of the horizon’s expanse she saw.

As I gazed at the back view of my boy, I thought about how it must have been the same for him.

At each step, he caught a different glimpse of the beautiful sunset – different shades beautifully and generously reflected by the retiring sun – before he reached the shoreline eventually.

As mothers, we too are climbing a staircase akin to the mother who climbed the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

At each stage of a child’s life we experience a different view. Some days we might feel that we are going in circles and getting nowhere. On those days, my dear friend, exchange your vision of circles for the image of the spiraling, upward steps of the lighthouse. Like the mother at the Cape saw the real view at the top. She didn’t give up, although she was tired physically, mentally and emotionally.

That day, my boy witnessed a beautiful sunset.

So, you too … must go on to reach the top view because the real view is at the top – the day your grown up kids call you blessed!

-Michelle Ng-