Up & Coming Weekly

6 UCW JANUARY 6-12, 2010 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM MARGARET DICKSON, Contributing Writer COMMENTS? 484-6200 ext. 222 or editor@upandcomingweekly.com. Welcome 2010 and All It Brings by MARGARET DICKSON A new year always makes me feel fresh, clean and renewed. I love the holidays, of course, and I can hardly wait to pull out the Dicksons' traditional decorations and to festoon available surfaces and corners with them. First among them is the tree, hung with everything from glittering glass balls and shiny White House ornaments to a clothespin- reindeer fashioned in a long ago Sunday School class. And, I can hardly wait to take them down when January starts breathing down our necks. I look now at the living room corner where the tree stood and am pleased with its clean emptiness and at the dining room table, bare except for a bowl my grandmother painted nearly a century ago. True, there are several lingering poinsettias, but I try to think of them as spots of color. Otherwise, our house looks like it does most of the year. It just seems clean and fresh because the excess has been taken down and stored. Also refreshed is our sense of ourselves. Most of us probably make some new year's resolutions, whether we announce them to the world or keep them to ourselves. Mine always include being as healthy as I can and doing the best I can for those around me. I know I could always do better on both counts, but I do have them as conscious goals, as I suspect you have yours. Shortly before the new year, I met a new friend who has a new son, his fi rst child, now just over 2-weeks-old. He and his wife are thrilled and sleepy, and I told him how many adventures they have ahead including moments of great joy and moments of sheer terror. He smiled the smile of the uninitiated, but soon he will understand. Wisdom comes from all around us and hides in the most unexpected nooks and crannies of our lives, and the best child-raising advice I have ever read popped up about the time I met my new friend. The News and Observer, Raleigh's daily newspaper and some would contend our state's newspaper of record, anoints a Tar Heel of the Week every Sunday and, at year end, a Tar Heel of the Year. For 2009, that person was Phil Freelon, a Durham architect with a shining career and a national reputation. It is a glowing article and includes this quote from his wife, Nnenna, herself a Grammy-award nominated jazz singer, about her husband's role as the father of their three children. It is simple, true, and profound. Says Nnenna of Phil, "I think he builds children. Not in the same way you build buildings, but you do build them. The time you spend, the things you model, the way you behave. Just the same way your partners, your employees watch you, your children watch you. And at some point, the walk becomes more important than the talk." Whoa! Anyone who has ever been a parent or who has taken care of children knows how true that statement is. Children, and especially adolescents, may seem lost in their own worlds that parents can barely fathom, but they are still sponges, taking in everything that happens around them, and regardless of what parents think children think of them, those same children are actually absorbing and processing every word and action of their parents, for good or ill. That does not mean, of course, that every word and action must be perfect — an impossible standard, but it does mean exactly what Nnenna Freelon says, that "the walk becomes more important than the talk." A visit to any school in America provides a pretty good indication of which parents are modeling well and which are too busy doing their own things. Our children are refl ections of us, as exhilarating or as painful as that may be. I am well aware of my failings as a parent, and I expect most parents feel the same way. I also know I failed in ways I am not aware of, and I probably succeeded on occasion in the same fashion, known and unknown. Parenting, it seems to me, is a process and a journey, not a series of highly signifi cant events, although those exist as well. Sometimes, when I step back and observe my three precious jewels, now young adults, I imagine that I can see my lapses and my mistakes, and I suffer for them. Other times, it is unimaginably gratifying to hear my thoughts and my words come from their mouths, and I do not think they even know it. I hope my new friend reads this column, not for my words, but for Nnenna Freelon's. He and his wife can make no better or more important resolution than to hold her words close to their hearts as life with their new son unfolds in this brand new year. THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET FLORENCE CIVIC CENTER PRESENTS A Photographic Tribute to Soldiers and Marines from the Civil War to the War In Iraq on display now through February 2, 2010. Special thanks to 3300 WEST RADIO DRIVE • FLORENCE, SC • 843-679-9417 • www.fl orenceciviccenter .com Vietnam Veterans of America Day January 9, 2010 • 11 a.m. to honor our Vietnam Veterans and their families. This event is open to all Vietnam Veterans, all US military men and women, as well as the general public. Please join us for this special honoring! Guest speakers will include: Lt. Joseph Marm-Congressional Medal of Honor recipient MG Robert E. Livingston; J5-CCC CENTCOM Entertainment: 282nd Army Band - Fort Jackson, SC Admission is free!

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