I Can Do That!

My daughter, Emily, at the learned age of 8 taught me a lesson that has never left me. The church we were attending at the time was planning a huge Christmas play. They were pulling out all the stops and were abuzz with excitement. Mary, the pastor's wife/casting director was in hot pursuit of the lead role: A young girl with many, many lines. In fact the character appeared in every scene and spoke in all but one. It was my understanding that she wanted a teenager, but girls weren't exactly lining up in front of her. A. Practices would take place each Friday and Saturday night for a month. B. Forget a line + suffer humiliation = life's over. Then one Sunday evening, Mary headed toward me smiling like a cat with salmon on it's breath. My first thought was, "Has she gotten that desperate?" I started filing through my mental files for the folder marked EXCUSES, but realized soon enough I didn't need excuses because she didn't need a 28 year old teenager. She: "Sweet Emily has saved the day!" Me: "My sweet Emily?" She: "Of course. She wants the role. She's so excited. I showed her the script, and how many pages there are to memorize. She said she could do it." Me: "Then she'll do it." My freckle faced, beautiful little girl who had never done anything remotely like this had just signed on for something realistically over her head. Realistically. But 8 year olds don't think realistically. They'd never stoop to that. When I first asked her about it and offered to loan her my EXCUSES folder, she told me what she had apparently told Mary, "Oh, I can do that." She even seemed incredulous that we adults hadn't thought of this before - the obvious solution. We spent the month at week-end practices and kitchen table readings. I was even more amazed than usual with this little girl! She not only was nailing her lines at practice, she was feeding lines to older kids AND adults. When the performance rolled around Em was, OF COURSE, magnificent. She didn't blow one line, and in fact covered like a seasoned pro for an adult who had forgotten his line. I've never seen such utter relief on one man's face! With a very sharp mind (she gets that from her dad), hard-headed determination (also from him) boldness (ditto) and a flair for the dramatic (what I brought to the gene party), the child was, and is, loaded with assetts. But what left an impression on me was her can-do attitude. Not once did she complain or give voice to any doubts. She knew she had a lot of work in front of her and knew it wouldn't be easy. But she knew something more important. She knew she could do it. And she did. When I'm confronted with difficult situations and am tempted to throw in the proverbial hat, I think back to the look on her face and the determination in her voice. I remember a very thick script covered in yellow highlighter, marking countless lines. I remember a tiny girl turning off cartoons and lying on the floor with a huge pile of work. I remember looking closely into her big blue eyes and not seeing a trace of doubt or nervousness. Then again, why would she worry. As she said, "Oh, I can do that."