I have two children who remain, the other three have grown. These two are my tiny tutors, my teachers, I, their student. One is tough, hard-headed, and soft-hearted. He lacks perspective taking, tries hard to be “good” and fails much. The other is tender-hearted, gritty and “good” with ease.
The first, is a cut from rugged cloth, with a soft lining. The second, cut from the softest sateen, with an incorruptible canvas lining. One has external strength, the other internal. Both are beautiful, bright and deeply good.
These two teach me what it means to be human, to be vulnerable, to be tender and tough, and that these things look radically different by disposition. They are growing straight, and tall and I am growing wise under their tireless tutelage.
Our daughter is cut from the same beautiful bolt as I, our son, the same robust rug as my husband. They each give me more grace, understanding, compassion, and empathy for my spouse and myself than I ever could have fathomed.
I love them with the true heart of a mother, wanting little else but their protection, provision, and nourishment while they flourish. Seeing their dispositional postures, resiliency, and responses to life is an in vivo illustration of the creature he and I were and have become.
This daily tutelage keeps me in a relatively judgment free zone of not only myself and my spouse, but also of my children. They each teach me tremendous lessons that I can hardly articulate but utterly absorb.
These tiny tutors are my educators on empathy, provide for my tutelage on triumph from trauma, while acting as poor prophets extolling the raw resilience and fragility of the human soul. I thank you both, this day. A good student I hope to be, learning well my lessons whilst you are young enough to educate.