Reciprocity

My eldest daughter Naama needed me to chaperone my granddaughter on her first grade field trip to Great Falls National Park. l accepted with great enthusiasm. What are grandmothers for if they can't fill in at important life events like a field trip?

A little yellow school bus greeted me in the parking lot. The kids jumped out like jelly beans on their way to the factory packaging plant. They left their static classroom desks and white teaching boards to delve into the verdant forest and rushing waters of pure nature. The children's spirits were released. I was so grateful to experience their vitality.

We hiked to watch the waterfalls. We skipped along the canal's towpath. The children picked up rocks and played with the insects that crawled beneath them. We made three bathroom stops in the space of an hour. And then, lunch!

Everyone went to sit next to their lunch boxes including my granddaughter, Noa Rebecca. There on the table was a lunch with my name on it: "Savta" (Hebrew for grandmother).

My daughter prepared a picnic lunch just for me: humus, red peppers, a whole wheat wrap with carrots, an apple, and trail mix.

The lunches I had made over the years for my four school age children were as numerous as the stars in the sky. No exaggeration!

Now, decades later, my own daughter made me lunch. One individually packed, homemade lunch stared back at me. I succumbed to its gift and ate it voraciously.