Bragging

 

Last week at a barbecue of similarly fossilized types, I listened to a few proud mums talk about their kids. It was the usual stuff. "My daughter:

• was the star in the local dance exhibition
• is head of her department
• won a blue ribbon for jam
• trained her Yorkie to push a shopping cart
• sewed a knockoff of the Duchess of Cambridge's wedding gown the day after the Royal Wedding
• Just earned her PHD in Developmental Psychology "

And so forth.

I heard much of the same about sons. I know a few mothers who spend a lot of time with their children and grandchildren, much of it because their child has phoned and asked them to babysit, help them out, cook something, drive them somewhere.

I don't see my daughter often or at least not as often as they do. For one thing, she never asks for a thing and would be horrified beyond belief to depend on us for anything other than love.

However, I sat back with a small grin on my face because just that week I had observed my daughter do something that not one of the other mothers could imitate.

My kid called and actually asked for something. She doesn't have a car, and what she needed to do wasn't possible on the bus. She needed a ride and she was apologetic for asking. It was urgent.

So, I went and got her and drove her to the local home/hardware/building centre. Once there, she made a straight shoot to the air-conditioners and grabbed a small window one. She plunked it in the buggy and we went to the cash-out. I wondered aloud if she was getting an extra one for her living room as our weather was now going through a terrible heatwave and her one little jobby in the bedroom likely wasn't cutting it.

No, it wasn't for that. I pressed, and she 'fessed up. This unit was for upstairs neighbours of hers who are a bit disabled both mentally and physically, and who have a dog and two cats. The temperature in their apartment was appalling, and Pook couldn't bear to think of them suffering in the heat. She bought the A/C unit, and took it to them, extracting a promise that they were never to breathe a word of how they got it. My daughter said that these people were always so very nice to her and they were good people who shouldn't have to suffer like this.

I have never been so proud of her. She doesn't have extra money and she works way too hard for what she does have. There is not one thing this young woman could ever do to make me bust quite as many buttons and to puff up in a greater swell of parental joy. Neither dance, nor song, nor parenting, nor job, nor status, nor wealth, nor power could quite match this selfless and completely loving act of hers.

Yet I didn't tell the others at the barbecue this tale. It would have sounded so braggy and indeed it is, but I'm telling my blog and whoever reads it.  Take notice.

My kid rocks.