Saw the movie “Blind Side” Thanksgiving weekend and thought about all of the women I have met and worked with in my life that are out there, changing the world, one day at a time. While it sometimes looks like they are just having fun, and their pictures end up more on the society pages than on the front page, they are the ones who make our world a better place.
These women, they really are the news of the day, making the world a little better, not just around the holidays or during an event, but all the time. They are the fabric upon which many a charitable organization does its good works. These women never earn a salary but they contribute far greater stuff.
Years ago, when I worked in a battered women’s shelter, I would drive up and see the BMW or a Jaguar parked at the curb. Those cars looked strangely out of place until they didn’t. Whether it was answering the phone or driving a child to school or planning the next fundraising event, these women were there, changing the world for the thousands who crossed the path of our Center.
Today, I work with an equally wonderful cadre of women who contribute their time, talent and treasure. The annual fundraising events that shares with the community the good works of this or that charity and raises money so that the next generation of children won’t live like this is always precisely run by these silent (s)heros. Our whole system of charitable organizations would cease operation if it weren’t for the women who step in like the woman who sheltered and nurtured Michael Oher. It isn’t always easy, to give of yourself freely, to work tirelessly for no pay and very little recognition. Today, thinking about all of these unsung heroes who have made me a better person, in addition to contributing to all of the organizations through which I worked, I am very grateful.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Confidence
That panicky feeling took over. The rendezvous point for my daughter in middle school was her former elementary school. My younger daughter was out there waiting, but where was her sister? We circled back in the car to her middle school, to the park where she often waits for a while with other friends who walk from the middle school to the elementary school. Not there. Ugh!
What to do? Breathe. “Let’s head up toward home, there is only one street she can follow,” I say to my younger daughter who is sensing my panic. We start up the street, a couple blocks and no sign of her. Then, I see her, a block or so away, jacket strung across her backpack (it was a chilly day), that familiar gait of her long legs. Relief!
I pull over, she smiles. I breathe.
“Mom, I feel so good about myself, I knew where I was going. Are you mad?”
“No! I was worried about you! I am so glad you are safe.”
“Mom, I knew how to get home, I knew I could do it.”
Confidence to know where we are going, is it something learned or is it something with which we are born? Sometimes I think it is the small things that remind us of who and what is within us. Throughout most of her life, I had never heard my daughter sound that confident. She espouses a lot of “knowing” I think mostly to annoy her younger sister. But that place of speaking out with your whole voice, that voice of confidence, I was pleasantly surprised to hear it coming from her.
Knowing is confidence. Sometimes we don’t trust what we know. That still small voice in us says something, and we say “sshhhhh, I don’t want to hear that.” Or we hear the override from the world which tells us we don’t know what we think we know. Those tween years, that’s when the inside voice begins to lose its power. This was a good day for my daughters and I. We all got to see the strength of the inside voice that knows. Here’s to hoping my daughter can hang on to her own voice as the voices of friends and others begin to gain volume in her world.
What to do? Breathe. “Let’s head up toward home, there is only one street she can follow,” I say to my younger daughter who is sensing my panic. We start up the street, a couple blocks and no sign of her. Then, I see her, a block or so away, jacket strung across her backpack (it was a chilly day), that familiar gait of her long legs. Relief!
I pull over, she smiles. I breathe.
“Mom, I feel so good about myself, I knew where I was going. Are you mad?”
“No! I was worried about you! I am so glad you are safe.”
“Mom, I knew how to get home, I knew I could do it.”
Confidence to know where we are going, is it something learned or is it something with which we are born? Sometimes I think it is the small things that remind us of who and what is within us. Throughout most of her life, I had never heard my daughter sound that confident. She espouses a lot of “knowing” I think mostly to annoy her younger sister. But that place of speaking out with your whole voice, that voice of confidence, I was pleasantly surprised to hear it coming from her.
Knowing is confidence. Sometimes we don’t trust what we know. That still small voice in us says something, and we say “sshhhhh, I don’t want to hear that.” Or we hear the override from the world which tells us we don’t know what we think we know. Those tween years, that’s when the inside voice begins to lose its power. This was a good day for my daughters and I. We all got to see the strength of the inside voice that knows. Here’s to hoping my daughter can hang on to her own voice as the voices of friends and others begin to gain volume in her world.
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