I have childless friends who long to be able to say that children are their greatest accomplishment, and I know that it was only a matter of happenstance that I am not one of them, so how can my children be considered an accomplishment? My darling friend Becky never raised her own children. But she used to throw a humdinger of a tea party for my kids every year. Homemade petit fours, homemade hummus, lots of kinds of sandwiches with the crusts cut off, fancy plates, hats for everyone, lots of sheets and a table out in the middle of a meadow.
She had a hammock in her living room, and sometimes she would have us come over, plop me in the hammock with a bowl of hummus, chips and a good movie, and entertain my kids for the rest of the day. She grew up in West Virginia, in indigent circumstances, and the stories she told of her childhood--scrubbing clothes in the stream, toting buckets of water and swimming in the swimming hole--ignited the imaginations of my children. Meanwhile, she let me rest, which helped me be a better mother. She also taught my kids in church. She deserves to call my children one of her accomplishments. I hope she knows that.
The other thing I would probably call my greatest accomplishment is my novel. I've written several, but only one that is publication-ready. Writing it is hard. Getting it ready to be published is crazy hard. I'm totally proud of it. But it isn't published yet. I promised everyone I would self-publish it last year, but then an editor asked for the full manuscript, and of course I've got to give that route my best effort. But the waiting is a killer!
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