“Do you know why you’re a good mama?” 

As I wrote in Part I of Questions for Mama, when my oldest daughter was two years old, she asked me why my face always looked so sad. Not long after that, I was to go through some major upheavals in my life, including the unravelling of my marriage. Although it seemed that this difficult time would never end, eventually it did and five or so years later, my life was relatively stable again. I working full-time and raising my two daughters on my own. 

One day, as we were walking home from school, my daughter looked at me and asked, “Do you know what makes you a good mama?”

- “Is it because I love you so much?” I asked.

- “No,” she said.  

- “Is it because I pack nice lunches for you?” 

- “No.”

- “Why am I a good mama then?” I asked her. 

- “You’re a good mama because you find something beautiful in every day.”

I was sincerely surprised by what she said because that’s not necessarily how I saw myself—my mind was usually busy processing and reprocessing all of the items on my to-do list, trying to figure out how I could best manage it all...appointments at the rehabilitation centre, deadlines at work, what to make for dinner, homework, occupational therapy exercises to be fit into the evening's activities and all that. 

Still, after everything that I had been through, I was indeed conscious of how much the little things in life now meant to me.  Like the tiny triumphs of my younger daughter’s progress as I wrote about in my book, like the very fact that I had children to take care of along with the means to do so, were all among the positive things that I appreciated every day.

At the age of two, my daughter had noticed that my face “always looked so sad” and, five years later, with many changes behind me I was much better—good enough so that she noticed that instead of looking sad, I was consistently pointing out something good in each day. 

My daughter’s first question, opened my eyes to the need for some serious self-reflection. Her second question, years later, opened my eyes to the extent to which I had moved forward since then. So, I say again, we should definitely be careful not to underestimate people—small, big or different in whatever way.