Saturday, November 14, 2020

Watching My Kids Take On the World, One Mini-Marathon at a Time


This week the kids at the local grammar school were out once again running their annual mini-marathon. And once again, watching my daughter struggling to keep up – an enormous and ultimately impossible task – my heart was both bursting with pride at her spirit and aching with the knowledge that her struggles will never completely end.
A week or so ago, arriving to pick her up at the after-school center she sometimes goes to, I heard her talking to another girl. From their conversation it was apparent they were in the process of deciding to go outside and play together. It also seemed that they did not know each other too well, because as I stood off to the side trying not to be noticed I heard my daughter tell the other girl very matter-of-factly that she looked kind of funny when she ran – and then asked the girl not to laugh.