a perfectly good life

I was touched when I heard this little, but profound, slice of life.

My goddaughter is three years old and last year her mother died. She is in nursery school with another little girl whose mother died about a year earlier.

The children in her class were lining up to go outside, when the conversation among them turned to the fact that “Julia and Ava don’t have Moms.” The three-year olds were fascinated. Julia slipped quietly away from the group to find her teacher, and said to her, “I don’t have a mom and I feel sad.” Her teacher replied, “It’s OK to be sad, Julia.” Julia then looked up at the teacher with a big smile on her face, and ran back to be with her friends.

This powerful moment was filled with feelings. When her teacher simply received her sadness with grace and warmth, it touched Julia, allowing her to return to play smiling because she felt understood and accepted. Often people find it scary when they are exposed to the kind of uncomfortable feelings Julia had that day in Nursery School. The tendency is to respond out of that discomfort, which robs both parties of a gratifying moment, like the one Julia and her teacher were lucky enough to share.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 16th, 2007 at 9:07 am and is filed under parenting, attitudes. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your site.
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