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| Mum and Ru 2005 |
During a creative exercise some years ago, I was
asked: “What was the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?”
Gee. Kind things are done for me all the time, even
when I don’t see them. A few examples popped immediately to mind, but none of them
were more than moments—strangers stopping to see if I was okay after I slipped
on a frosty sidewalk; friends dropping a box of non-perishable foodstuffs on
our doorstep when Ter and I were broke; coffees bought or hugs exchanged or
smiles offered all counted if I simply wanted to answer the question, but I
thought seriously about it because the kindest thing ever suggested
selecting a single item from a half-century stuffed with possibilities.
I actually came up with one. The kindest thing anyone
has ever done for me?
My mother wanted me.
She didn’t just want me; she contrived to get
me, and once she had me, I lacked for nothing.
I wasn’t spoiled with material things, but from my first breath I was loved. In
a world where children are too often born by accident or nefarious design, my
mother made her kids the center of her universe. I was luckier than my sibs—I
came just after my older sister began kindergarten and my parents’ best friends
welcomed a newbie to their family. Timing is everything, so I scored big.
Nelson Mandela said that you can tell a lot about a
society by the way it treats its children. Even in the poorest conditions,
children can be loved and taught to believe in themselves. Regrettably, this is
not always the case. I see the evidence in my job and in the people around me;
in the adult children of women who did the best they could, but perhaps lacked
the focus my mother possessed. Raising children is so hard that I’m glad I
don’t have any of my own, but if I had become a mother, I hope I’d have been as
wonderful to my daughter as mine has been to me.
Happy Mother’s Day.
I am certain you would have been, Ru. You had an excellent adviser.
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