What Makes Me Proud

Sometimes, of course, it's the big things. But mostly? It's the little moments, the not-so-in-your-face ones, the ones that show character so far beyond what you might have hoped your child would have.

I'm not going to tell much of this story because--as is almost invariably true of 12-year-old girls whose lives have become more and more their own and less and less their parents'--it's not mine to tell, no matter what Anne Lamott says. After all, nobody behaved badly here.

Here's what I can say: There was a disappointment yesterday. It brought tears to Em's eyes. You could literally see her stiffening her upper lip; she didn't give in to it, wouldn't give in to it. We talked, and I tried to comfort, but it was she who got herself past it.

Grinning at me with a watery smile, she said, "I feel like Mercedes."

I looked at her quizzically.

And then she smiled wider, eyes still brimming with tears, and began belting out, completely unselfconsciously, in a deliberately stagey and off-key voice:

I am beautiful.
No matter what they say.
Cuz words can't bring me down.
No, no.


I am beautiful.
In every single way.
And words can't bring me down.
No, no.

And then she sat there, and grinned. And giggled.

My kid is going to do so well in life.