Moments with kids that never leave us

Life gives us moments for doing things. Being young, for example. We don't get to do that forever. Except maybe at heart.

There are moments for laughing, moments for grieving, moments for watching a child grow up. Childhood may seem to last for years, but really, it passes in bits and pieces that come flaming out of nowhere like shooting stars and slip quietly out of sight. Either you see them, or you don't.

We want to think we can make them happen. If not today, then tomorrow. Or soon, for sure.

But moments never show up on demand. They are gifts, free and clear. We can't create them, any more than we can make a comet streak across the sky.

All we can do is take a little time to hope and watch and wait and see what might come along.

My children do a beautiful job of raising their children without me. We live 500 miles apart. I fly in once a month or so and stay a few days or more. It's never enough, but it's the best I can do. And God bless them, they all seem to understand.

Even the little people.

Henry is 3. "You have to go, Nana?" he says, sad-faced. Then he nods with the wisdom of a knee-high Solomon. "It's OK. You live with Papa Mark."

"Henry," I say, "where is your nana when you can't see her?"

He grins, pointing to his heart.

Henry's cousin, Wiley, is almost 2. He knows I'm his nana but doesn't care when I leave as long as he's got his mama.

But Wiley's big brother Randy is 4, old enough to spend a night away from home and sweet enough to need me as I once needed my grandmothers: To be someone for whom he hangs the moon. Someone who lights up to see his face. Someone who loves just to be with him.

What else is a nana for?

So on the next-to-last night of my latest visit, I invited Randy to spend the night with me.

I was staying at the home of friends who were off in France, or wherever, and I had their house and pool all to myself.

Randy brought swim trunks, pajamas and a toothbrush, his favorite Transformer and enough books to fill a library.

"Can we go in the pool now, Nana?" he said after dinner.

"It's too late to swim tonight," I said. "Let's read."

So we did, curled up in my friends' guest bed like foxes in a borrowed den. Five books later, his eyelashes fluttered like copper butterflies and he fell asleep, clinging like a monkey, arms around my neck, legs around my middle.

I didn't sleep much. Didn't care. I can sleep when I'm dead.

At 2 a.m., he roused to ask, "Nana, can we go swim now?"

"It's pitch dark," I said. "Go back to sleep." He did.

At 4 a.m., he mumbled, "Nana, I'm not very comfortable."

"Roll over," I said. He did.

At 5:49 I awoke to hear him whisper-singing in my ear, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."

"Hungry?" I said.

He grinned.

Minutes later, we were sitting in the kitchen. He was eating Cheerios. I was drinking coffee. The sun was dancing on the hills. Then he stopped with his spoon mid-air and said:

"Nana, I'm glad this time is just you and me. I thought it would be you and me and my mom and dad and Wiley and Papa Mark. I love all those people. But sometimes I like it when it's just you and me."

He took a bite of Cheerios. I tried to swallow a gulp of coffee.

"I like it, too," I said finally, rubbing my face in his red curls. "But tell me. Where is your nana when you can't see her?"

Like lightning, he pointed to his heart. Then we smiled with our eyes and went back to being just us, a boy and his nana.

He won't always want to be "just us." But in that moment, he did. And some moments shine so very bright they linger forever in memory.

Randy might not remember it.

But I will.

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Award-winning essayist Sharon Randall's weekly column has an estimated readership of 6 million nationwide. Born and reared in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North and South Carolina, Randall grew up in Landrum, S.C., and has lived for 35 years in "California of All Places."