Taking a shower is a marvelous sensation. The warm water slipping across my back, washing off the grime and stress of the day, is a blessing. There are times when I hurry, because of a line-up of expectations, but then as the water is pouring I cannot resist lingering. What's the rush, anyway? 

 

My young children did not shower. I plunked them in the tub. Sometimes there were three at a time, plastic toys bobbing in the surrounding bubbles. They each lathered up the hair of the sibling in front of them, with me filling in at the rear. Privacy was not a concern when their collective age was twelve. 

 

I admit that there were evenings when I was less than careful. One comment still stings. 

 

"When you are little, and I am big, I won't get the soap in your eyes." 

 

I smiled, and apologized. I tried to be more gentle. 

 

Last week I had a splinter in the bottom of my heel, and any ability I once had to contort my trunk to reach the outer limits of my foot was gone. John was kind enough to extract it. There is a sweetness around helping one another with these mundane tasks. 

 

Sometimes I help elderly women with personal care. My own sense of modesty dimmed after nine births, and four months as a chaplain visiting patients in skimpy gowns. 

 

As I washed her hair, I remembered what my own child had said, forty years ago. I laughed at the time, but maybe the day will come after all.