Role models

It's funny how your life can turn around in an instant. I lay in bed unable to sleep because of a leg cramp that wouldn't give up. I got up and walked that off, then I decided it was time to add a new comment on my blog. The only thing that came to mind was all the worrying I have been doing lately with issues of family health problems that seem to have taken over my life. I didn't want to write about that, but like I said, it has taken over my life and every thought is intertwined with it.

I sat at the computer, took a deep breath, preparing myself to think of something else and as my screen lit up, I found a document that my sixteen year old son had typed up earlier for his last homework assignment of this school year. Apparently, he had to write about role models. It took my breath away.

The first sentence was - "My mom wrote a book." He went on to explain that a character in my book, Samantha Collins, was his role model. He described her characteristics as fun loving and helpful and told how she made the best of her life even though she had an inoperable brain tumor. Sam came from a troubled past, but overcame that to become a strong willed, caring person. He wrote how he realized through her that there were things about himself that he didn't appreciate and this led him to strive to be a leader rather than a follower.

There was more about the importance of role models and how they can be a good or bad influence on peoples' lives, but the part that hit me the hardest was the last two sentences - "It seems as though Samantha Collins made me into a new person. But in reality, my mother shaped me into the person that I am proud to call myself today."

My kids never cease to amaze me.