Anne Lamott had a lovely story in Sunday’s LA Times Magazine, entitled “Blessed Are the Annoying.” It began as follows:
One morning 10 years ago I awoke with a savage headache that rendered me unbalanced and nauseated. My 6-year-old son came in to see why I wasn’t up getting him ready for school. He took one look at the situation; his mother in bed, sweaty and lifeless as the guy in cartoons with X’s where his eyes should be; and took charge of the situation. . . .
"You go back to sleep. I can get myself ready." He brought me a glass of orange juice, petted me, like little children do, and made sounds of sorrow. . . .
When I next woke, with a half hour left until we had to leave for school, I called out for an update. "Everything’s going great, Mom."
"Have you gotten dressed, honey?"
"Ayyyy-yup."
So I went back to sleep with a wistful and amazed sense of our being partners in this business. Soon he would hardly need me at all. After nearly half an hour more of sleep, I bolted out of bed, my headache gone, pulled on clothes and raced out to gather him up for school.
There he sat, on the couch, with a root beer in one hand, the TV remote in the other, wearing his Power Rangers underpants, beaming.
It is worth reading, not only for the graceful writing and gentle humor, but for the religious vision of empathy, humility and love, visible by the end of the story in a young boy’s matted hair.