I am discovering one of the many fun things about having a child fortunate enough to be in a private school is that there are fundraisers.  In the fall there is a carnival that is for the whole family and in the spring they have one that is just for the grown-ups.  This was our first time stepping out since our little one is in kindergarten.  The theme this year was Havana nights.  There were women wearing festive flowers in their hair and men sporting Fedoras.  I can say without bias my husband was the most handsome man there and he looked off the charts in his new blue tux jacket with the lapis cufflinks I’d given him some years ago.  We took a “party bus” to get there and it was fun that we both answered Cuban trivia correctly to win little prizes.  Each passenger would also leave with a set of colorful maracas before entering the venue.  Once we got off the elevator we were handed a mojito as we checked ourselves in for the live auction later that evening.  Then we browsed through tables of various packages up for bidding.  They had everything from VIP shopping trips to attending the world premier of the next “Mission Impossible” in London.  My husband and I chose to bid for our little one to have a chance to spend the night at her school with all the girls in her grade.  Our class didn’t win but I figure we have eight more tries before she leaves this school as a freshman.  Cuban music blared as tuxedoed servers passed hors d’oeuvres on silver trays.  There was a fun photo area set up where we got our pictures taken and printed instantly, which made a nice memory.  On the tables cigar boxes were artfully stacked as centerpieces and woven straw fans graced them as well.  There were real pineapples and fake palm trees; all of which contributed to the festive atmosphere.  A tower of churros was beautifully arranged near the bar for dessert.  My favorite spot was the hand rolled cigar station.  I chose both kinds offered; one was similar to a Montecristo and the other a Churchill.  The cigar bands read “Havana Nights” and I look forward to trying them.  The British writer and traveler Evelyn Waugh once said:

“The most futile and disastrous day seems well spent when it is reviewed through the blue, fragrant smoke of a Havana Cigar.”

Neither one of us have been to Cuba but on this evening, with the lights of the Dallas skyline behind us, we managed to experience a taste of Havana nights.

They say you never really appreciate your parents until you grow up.  I knew I’d always valued them, but I have come to the conclusion that one cannot be fully grateful for everything your parents did until you become a parent yourself.  My father worked every day but Sundays.  He owned a painting business and had a clientele mostly for residential houses, both interior and exterior.  He also did large projects, like painting the First Baptist Church of Dallas.  He and my mother made sacrifices so that she could stay home with me.  Looking back though I notice we had an abundance of books — my mother’s on classical art and music, my father’s on politics and history, and mine which contained Newbery and Caldecott Medal award-winning children’s books.  We took advantage of free outdoor concerts in the summer like the symphony and Shakespeare in the park, we utilized our local library, and tried to make museum days when they were free.  We also watched cool nature documentaries on TV.  I particularly loved watching, “The Wonderful World of Disney” on Sunday evenings with my parents.  Looking back I see how well they educated me on their own outside of the schoolroom.  They instilled in me a love of learning and thirst for knowledge which continues to this day.  I remember it was very important to my father that I learn phonetics.  He was never very good with them and wanted me to be better.  I do not know why, over the years, I have managed to tell myself I was naturally gifted with languages and spelling.  As I have recently been working with my kindergartener over her 72 “sight words” I have been transported back into the long-forgotten days of whining, writhing, and wailing.  To my horror I realized what my little one is doing to me is the same thing I did to my mother as she thanklessly and tirelessly worked with me on my flashcards.  Now the cards are in my hands.  I must do for my daughter what my mother did for me.  When my little one proclaimed it was too hard I told her that for most people learning isn’t something automatically acquired; it requires persistence and hard work.  Sometimes it is fun and sometimes it is unbridled Hell.  Peering through the veils of time, I remember my parents helping me study to make it to the regional Spelling Bee after I became my elementary school champion.  That didn’t just happen; I remember them working with me and checking the words as I got them right.  I have noticed with each small victory my little one becomes less “agonized” and, therefore, so do I.  The retired American four-star army general Colin Powell said, “There are no secrets to success.  It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.”  Just as my parents wanted for me, my husband and I want for our child to successful, in whatever form that may take.  One day I wonder if my little one will recall these early days of learning and have the same revelation about me that I did about my mother.  If or when she does, she’ll know it in a flash.

I love the school my daughter is lucky enough attend.  I made the most of my public education, and I am thankful for it.  But traversing the colorful, imaginative halls of her world I have found myself wishing I could have been as fortunate.  The school is passionate about children and learning.  It practices our faith; it is cheerful, inclusive, unpretentious, and —- most of all, kind.  I have discovered it is easy to be kind with one’s own social class, or with someone who holds the same beliefs.  More difficult I have found is showing kindness to one who does not like you for whatever reason, or who does not accept you, or who deems themself better than you.  From the time my child could understand I have told her what my father told me:  there will always be someone smarter than you, better looking than you, or greater than you in some skill.  And, should you happen to be the very best in all of those things, there will always be someone younger than you.  My father did not say this to discourage me — rather, he said it to strengthen me.  A highly competitive kid, I made the Honor Roll, won the school Spelling Bee, got every principal’s award, and gold medaled in both statewide singing and writing competitions.  I was also on the drill team, which was a huge deal in high school.  Still all the kids made fun of me for wearing the same clothes, and an adult even once joked about my father’s car in my presence.  I was silently labeled unfair things like being “loose” simply because we lived in an apartment.  It was my father who taught me that I define myself.  I remember asking him once why he wasn’t angry:  angry with the police for continually pulling my dark-skinned father over and always letting him go after “just checking;” angry that we could never seem to get ahead despite all his hard work and integrity; angry that people routinely referred to him as “Chief.”  He turned his piercing dark blue eyes on me and softly told me that no matter what, we could always choose to be kind.  There was no bitterness in him and in that moment I discovered how he had managed to rise above it all.  He chose not to judge and simply to be kind.  I was once hurt very badly by a boy I dated for a summer.  He was from our church and I felt his parents thought I was trying to better myself financially by going out with him.  We lived in an apartment in a very poor part of town and they had a house in the well-to-do part.  I just thought he was impossibly handsome and so good.  I think they politely tolerated me, biding their time until their son was in college.  I had already started community college and knew what my academic goals were; I had known for years actually.  I can still remember the pitying look on their faces when I proudly told them I’d be attending SMU in the future.  Their son was off to an expensive private college in state and it was “suggested” he date sorority girls.  (Translation — girls with money.)  I did not want to believe it and I went with my parents to see him when he was away at university.  It was like he was shocked to see me although he had invited me.  I was absolutely crushed.  What I would learn when I was accepted into SMU, was that in fact is was more often the rich who sought the same for monetary gain, rather than the poor supposedly on the hunt for money.  I know no one will believe this, but a few years later in the same university town where I got my heart broken I noticed a girl who looked so much like me it was quite startling.  She actually approached me and asked if my name was Laura.  It wasn’t a question, really; it was more of a statement.  Surprised, I said yes and we wound up talking for several minutes.  She asked me if I knew this guy (the one from my church) and I replied I did.  She then told me the guy dated her for awhile but that he repeatedly called her by my name.  I went from being instantly jealous to feeling very sorry for her.  I think she felt the same way about me.  So what is kindness, really?  Does it falsely hide under the guise of politeness?  I submit that true kindness does not feign anything.  I met my future husband because he did not know how to change the flat tire on his car.  After I replaced it for him he asked if he could buy me an ice cream cone.  He was the most handsome man I had ever met — but his kindness is what got me.  I have repeatedly told my daughter that kindness is the most important trait one can possess.  Money can come and go, looks may fade; but kindness remains.  This year her school has been practicing kindness.  When I happened upon this shirt I knew it would be perfect for her “free dress” day during kindness week.  Bob Goff is the American author of the New York Times best seller “Love Does.”  He is quoted as having said, “Throw kindness around like confetti.”  Kindness is something that must be practiced; it does not always come easy.  But our world would definitely be better if we all strove to throw kindness like confetti.

Every four-legged in our home has a rescue story behind them.  We have kitties that are sweet, but anyone who has ever owned a cat knows they are also a bit rotten on some level.  I am reminded of the saying that dogs have masters and cats have staff.  The American science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein once quipped, “Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.”  I realize that is rather sexist; however I do think there is some truth to that.  Yes they have shredded curtains and scratched the sofa, but they have also comforted me as I have wept into their fur.  Wolves are particularly sensitive and always know when one of our family is upset.  And few things can come close to being snuggled up in bed with a good book and a warm cat.  I have found our kitties hiding in cabinets and blatantly lounging on our clean laundry.  One even unrepentantly ran off with a hunk of the Thanksgiving turkey once.  I took this shot of Blue the other day after discovering he’d gotten himself locked in my husband’s closet.  I knew I heard him but I just couldn’t find him — until I looked up.  This was the adorable view that greeted me.  Whether canine or feline, time spent in their company is never wasted.  Our pets are family and we love them … even the crazy cats.  

With the advent of the new year I had been seeing all of these carpe diem slogans, along with vaguely scary admonitions that life can change in the blink of an eye.  Ten days ago, shortly after I’d dropped my little one off at school, I received a call from the nurse telling me I needed to come get my child because her arm was broken.  She wasn’t crying but said that her pain level was at a 10.  By the time I got there she was paler than paste, shivering and huddled under a blanket that had been wrapped carefully around her, and her eyes were rolling intermittently back in their sockets.  In that second I experienced something of what my mother must have felt when I was in kindergarten and came home with a severed finger:  abject terror and complete helplessness.  Emergency x-rays showed her elbow was indeed broken.  She was placed in a temporary cast and sling and she saw a pediatric orthopedist two days later.  Her arm was still incredibly swollen and they put her in another temporary cast to allow for the swelling to subside.  I kept her in her sling except during sleep and felt confident the bone would not move.  After all, there was only a 20 to 30 percent chance that it would; if it did it would require surgery.  I was absolutely stunned when they removed her cast a week later and another x-ray revealed a much bigger gap between her small bones, meaning of course that they’d moved.  I did not write my usual blog on Sunday; instead I elected to play endless rounds of My Little Pony’s Candy Land with my little one and this silly game where a fox puts chickens in his pants.  When his pants finally fall down, the first to get their chickens back to their coop wins.  I read more books with her, played more with her, and made up more stories for her.  I found time slowed, and my father always taught me that time is the one thing that cannot be replaced.  Early this morning my little six year old underwent major surgery and had two steel pins placed through her little bones to hold them properly in place.  Next week her arm will go into a hard cast for at least a month and at some point she will have it removed, along with the pins protruding from her elbow.  The Australian moral philosopher Peter Singer is quoted as having said:

”Sometimes we know the best thing to do, but fail to do it.  New year’s resolutions are often like that.  We make resolutions because we know it would be better for us to lose weight, or get fit, or spend more time with our children.  The problem is that a resolution is generally easier to break than it is to keep.”

Prior to this I’d dusted off last year’s resolutions, which included everything mentioned above and more.  While I was striving to do more, be more, and add more into my life I learned an invaluable lesson from my precious little one … all it took for me to see it was a break.