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David Cordell
I was looking for items on my computer desktop that I could delete, and I ran across this description of a meaningful experience. I posted it about five years ago
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On Tuesday I arrived in Baltimore on the day before the start of a financial planning conference. Just knocked around a bit. Checked with my good friend Scot Milvenan, who did a residency at Johns Hopkins, and asked where to go in Baltimore for some steamed crabs. He recommended Captain James Crab House in the Fells Point area, so I hopped the water taxi (using my 50% senior discount—umm, the discount was 50%; I’m not a 50% senior) and headed to Fells Point. After a 20 minute walk around the Fells Point area, I arrived at Captain James’s. It’s one of those places where they cover the picnic table with butcher paper and lay the crabs onto the table.
I sat with a woman and her daughter, who was probably about 10 or 12. I could see immediately that the daughter (Alice), was not a “normal” child. Her complexion was very spotty, possibly due to medication, I surmised. She never spoke, and her range of expressions ranged from blank to aggravated. At first, I thought she was blind, but she seemed to react when her mother moved a spoon to her mouth. I couldn’t help but think of Patty Duke’s performance as Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker.
The mom was incredibly upbeat. She was a physical therapist who had served in the army for 20 years, having trained at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, but was now a civilian. She spoke happily of her days in San Antonio, albeit days of financial deprivation. She worked with lots of soldiers who came home from Iraq and Afghanistan, with life-changing injuries.
I asked about the plastic bracelet she was wearing, anticipating that she had been at a hospital. Yes, she had taken her daughter to Johns Hopkins for treatment. I wanted to ask more, but I showed uncharacteristic constraint.
She showed me how extract meat from the crabs, and we talked about the recent racial strife in Baltimore. During the conversation, she would periodically turn to her daughter to comfort her or give her some food without interrupting her conversation. And she never stopped being cheerful. At one point, after watching her lovingly care for her child, who was active but not disruptive, I tried to give my warmest smile and I gently shared my observation that she was a very patient mother. Her quick and matter-of-fact response was, “She’s a good girl.”
“She’s a good girl.” What a simple yet revealing statement.
When they were finished with dinner, the mom bid me well and left the restaurant, pushing her daughter in something that looked like it was a hybrid of a wheelchair and a stroller. As they walked out I felt a sense of relief at not having a child with such disability. I also felt a sense of inadequacy, knowing that I don’t have the patience, and maybe not the “goodness”, to provide the loving care that the mom demonstrated. Inevitably, my thoughts turned to my own sons and my thousands of interactions with them over 34 years—things said or done that didn’t reveal the level of fatherly love that I felt. Indeed, I had some hopes for them that they haven’t fulfilled and some standards that they haven’t maintained. Many were unrelistic. Then I reflected on my own youthful mistakes and misdeeds, and the realization that my parents probably thought the same thing about me.
When I rose from the table to leave, I gazed over at the space vacated by my young table-mate Alice. My thoughts turned back to my sons. All the sudden I missed them very much and said to myself something that I probably haven’t said in 20 years.
”They’re good boys.”
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