Forts in the Living Room

A few weeks ago I got a text from my daughter that said "I remember nothing about the plot of this movie.. I remember lots of forts in the living room though"! (referring to the movie Twister, which was a "scary" movie : ). And it made me warm and fuzzy inside to think of her fond memories. It also helped me put the incident that happened the day before into perspective.

The same darling of mine was involved in a minor car accident. It was her first, but regardless of how many times it happens to you it's scary. She arrived in town after a couple of weeks at school and headed off to our favorite Chinese restaurant to pick up dinner for the family. When turning out of the restaurant across busy traffic, a car she didn't see coming and her car collided. Regardless of blind spots or speeding - the fault would be hers. Fault? Who cares - everyone was uninjured, vehicles barely bumped.. so you won't believe what happened next.

The passenger of the other vehicle - a woman, approached my daughter's window and began calling her vile, filthy things. When my daughter called me, she was obviously shaken, but held it together until she told me about the verbal abuse of this woman. My son and I headed to the scene and that entire LONG 10 minutes I thought about how I would handle myself when I arrived. Oh, I knew she was ok - as were the others involved, but I was MAD. How could anyone talk to a teenage girl like that - how dare her scare MY baby that way! I was out for blood.

My family would probably tell you I don't have the calmest of tempers. The classic red-headed curse - it didn't come from my parents, so it must be that - right? And I would love to deny the inadequacy in my character, but honesty is not something I have a problem with - so I won't. What did come from my parents was a looonnnggg time of trying to teach me to be better. To be better than to react like I wanted, to be better than someone that would scare a young woman like that, to be better than let my emotions get the best of me. Thankfully, most of the time this takes over and keeps the fury of my emotions at bay, and thankfully, that day it did again. The worst thing I did was give a nasty "teacher" look to the woman that was so ugly to my daughter, not perfect, but a lot of control for this red-head out to protect her baby.

Thankfully, my daughter is fine, the people in the other vehicle weren't injured and hopefully my children and I continued to learn the lesson of being better. As a mother, I am so thankful to my parents and so very hopeful that I've taught my children as they taught me. The woman that spoke in such an ugly manner to my daughter was a mother. I pray she learned a lesson - or her children won't have the benefit of learning how to control one's behavior - how to be not just "better", but how to be the kind of human being we all should want to be. So here's my hat off to my parents and all parents out there who have given their children memories of "better" behavior... and of forts in the living room.