I’m going to say this now: I’m proud of you. That’s it. You can stop reading here if you want. I know you’re busy. So take the kids to karate class, scrub your bathroom mirror, schedule a dentist appointment, wash your dog, live your life amidst a worldwide pandemic.
Buy more hand sanitizer. Get some organic peach-smelling disinfectant. Scrub your surfaces, doorknobs, children, pets, and spouse head-to-toe with isopropyl rubbing alcohol. But just remember that I’m proud of you.
The thing is, I don’t think we tell each other how special we are. I don’t think people get enough attaboys, well-dones, or five-dollar beer pitchers.
So I’m proud of you. For not giving up. For eating breakfast. I’m proud of you for remembering to breathe and keep going. Really.
I’m also proud of Billy. He emailed me. He’s forty-nine. He’s been working in construction all his life, and he couldn’t read until a few years ago.
His friend gave him reading lessons every morning on the ride to work. And on weekends. They practiced on lunch breaks.
Billy started with elementary school books. Recently he
read the “Complete Collection of Sherlock Holmes Stories.”
He reads aloud sometimes, during lunch break to the fellas. He said he’s been practicing reading the same stories so many times, he’s almost memorized them.
I’m proud of Leona, who had the courage to check into addiction rehab recently. She’s a young woman, and she needs someone to be proud of her. So I guess I’ll have to do.
I’m proud of her aunt, too—who is helping to raise Leona’s daughter.
And Michael, who just asked Jessica to marry him—on Christmas morning. He squatted down onto one knee in front of seventeen family members, one woman, and her three children.
He gave Jessica and each of her children a ring.
He said, “Will you be my everything, forever and always?”
Jessica’s oldest (Brooke, age eleven) got…