My little munchkin will be seven in a few days. It feels like yesterday, when I got her home from the nursing home, six and a half years ago. If I think about the lessons she has taught me, well, I would say I have learnt both direct and indirect lessons from her.
So let’s come to the indirect lessons first-
- She first taught me to scale up my competencies and multi-task with those sleepless nights in her growing up years as a toddler.
- She taught me to be patient, which I lacked in my earlier years.
- She brought about the quality of responding to me instead of reacting. I still keep answering her innocent questions every day.
Moving on to the direct lessons
- I admire her follow up sessions with me when it comes to bringing her a gift. I get a reminder every half an hour until the
gift is finally handed over to her. She makes me realise the true value of follow-ups and the ease with which she manages this practice. - I was amazed at the amount of resilience and maturity she exhibited when I lost my mother. We had no control over the entire situation as it was a die-hard emergency we were dealing with, and she was a silent audience to the same. She was extremely close to her grandmom. However, to date, she has never questioned me about her whereabouts, even if I try probing her about the same.
- I admire the way she let go of certain unimportant conflicts she faces every day and tries to concentrate on what she has in hand. This is one of the biggest lessons I learnt from her.
- The most important lesson, she inspires me every time I pack my bags back to Hyderabad after my monthly visits to her in Pune. She sees me off with a smile, a smile which has the hope of meeting her again in the following month and courage, which tells me I am bringing up a strong child ready for the world, and she is gearing up to face.
These are some attributes I admire about her, and there are many more but in the interest of limited words. I conclude here.
