a different kind of Pride

This may not be my most eloquent entry.  I am writing it spontaneously with a lot of emotion oozing from the words – all that emotion doesn’t come out eloquent sometimes.  I apologize.   A little.  #sorryNotsorry

Had a sweet conversation with my darling daughter this morning, so much so that I need to get it down “on paper” before the feelings fade, and it is less than a memory. 

I was telling her the story about how My uncle Eddie gave me the 45 of David Bowie’s Fame (not to mention I had to explain to her what a 45 was!!).  I described him as a cool uncle, very young and spirited.  I’m not even sure if that is accurate, because he died when I was 8.  But that is how I remember him.  She asks if he was alive now, would she like him; would he like her.  And as per usual, she asked how he died.  She asks this every time we discuss death.  I think she is still trying to figure death out – what causes it, what to be worried about.  “Brain Tumor.”

 Her eyes stormed over and she asked, “You mean cancer?”  Cancer is very much the C word to her.  It kills people.  I tried to explain that if he lived today, that modern science and medicine probably would have been able to save him.  I’m not exactly positive that is true – but it is the story that I tell myself, and that I believe to be true.  I hear so many stories about people with Brain Tumors, and living.  So why not Uncle Eddie? 

She apologizes.  She apologizes for “making me talk about dead people.”  I smile.  “Well, there are a lot of dead people in my life to talk about, unfortunately.  But I don’t mind talking about them, Kadence.  I actually like to talk about them, it helps to keep them alive through my memories. “ 

She says something about them not really being dead because we keep them alive in our hearts.  A line she got somewhere, that she was fed by one of us.  Not that I don’t believe it, because I do.  It just sounds funny coming out of her mouth. 

Then comes the sweet part, “Know what?  I bet they would be so proud of you.”  Even as I write down her words, tears well up in my eyes.  My darling daughter, telling ME that my parents would be proud of me.  Woooof the air is taken from my lungs, “They would be proud that you are a good person, and you have made a great family.” 

I can’t think of a better compliment or notion or gift that she could ever give me.  The notion that She is proud of me.  The notion that she believes that my dead parents would be proud of me, and that I am a good person.  Yes – I know I am a good person.  And I know my parents would be proud of me.  But more so, its that SHE is proud of me.  The thought that she, my little 10 year old flighty ball of spitfire, thinks about my losses.  Really our losses – but she thinks about me as a person, and about MY losses and how they affect me.  And she thought enough about it to say it outloud, to put it into words.  Words that touched my soul.  And I am crying as I write this – because she is growing into such a sweet loving little lady (even though you might think she would kick your butt, the bruising Karate Champion that she is).  And of course I am proud of her.  Proud of who she is and who she is becoming. 

And I don’t think it is all our doing.  You might say, of course she is becoming a good person, a loving person – because that is how you are bringing her up.  BUT, I think it is also just WHO she is.  And we are just lucky to be present in her life to bask in it. 

Happy Mother’s Day to me!