The other day I held a friend's baby for awhile just to help out. She was grateful. Too grateful if that is possible. What I mean is, I cuddled him for one revolution by the minute hand around the clock, and she thanked me effusively. In the absence of a standard measure for gratitude I will call it a boodle of thanks. Then when the door closed behind me she took her baby back into her tired arms and held him for the next week. Let's low ball it and say forty hours. The gratitude she was due should be forty times what I got, or approximately forty boodles.

If there was anyone to offer it.

Which there isn't.

Why would I be given such generous thanks for something so small, while she is not for something so big?

Another friend needed to talk, and I was ready. Her life is coming apart at the seams, with health issues, financial repercussions and the lack of emotional well being. The stakes are big, and there are no miracles on the horizon. 

Before we parted she thanked me. Yet the realization that she was striding back into her life, to give in an unending stream to her children, her marriage, her extended family, her job, seemed oppressively heavy. What I offered her felt pathetically small. Embarrassingly insignificant. Yet I gave it with all that was in me. 

One hour of my heart. A boodle's worth. But who was there to acknowledge her stream of service? Where was her megaboodle of thanks?

I don't have an answer. But my love for her has grown.