Star Lee Blog

Lily and I on our avacado farm in Santa Rosa February 2008

It’s funny how life always gives us the lessons that we need. Or reminders of what we need to learn if we pay attention. For example, parenting and raising well-balanced and self-sufficient children is much like building a well-balanced and self-sustaining business.

I was out with my 5-year-old daughter, Lily, the other evening. We were headed to Michaels craft store to get a gift for my niece’s birthday. As we walked in, there was a free craft table for children to create an art project. Lily was so excited – just like her mother, she loves to be creative and get her hands dirty.

She made me the sweetest decoupage of a farm and signed her name on it. She was so proud and so was I. These are the gifts that make for lifelong childhood memories. We carried out her gift, beaming.  We had a bonding moment and it was a wonderful mother-daughter  time. Next stop that day was to do a little shopping next door. So Lily got her own cart and put her art project in the cart and wanted to push it around the store herself to make sure it didn’t get banged or damaged as it was drying.

While we were shopping and our backs were turned, someone unknowingly took Lily’s cart – with her art project in it. The cart was nowhere to be found. I look into Lily’s gray-green eyes, welling up with tears, and jumped into mommy action mode. “Lily, don’t you worry,” I comforted her. “We are not leaving the store until we have checked every last cart, or until the store is closed and we have exhausted every one of our options.”

I asked Lily, who is learning about impatience, if she was up for this challenge. “You will need to dig deep and put your patience hat on.” She answered me, very seriously, “Yes, Mommy, I will be patient.”

Now, it was already a late night, my kids are the type that are up early and in bed early and it was already 7 p.m. Lily and I went around the store looking in the bottom of many carts. We then enlisted the help of the store manager to do a store-wide announcement. Our last option was to wait at the checkout section and check every cart as they were emptied.

The whole time I was talking with Lily and telling her that we will do everything in our power to find her art project but we are not going to get attached to the outcome. Whatever the outcome is, it is, and we will do our best and let the rest go.

I tell you that nearly two hours later the store was closing, we had exhausted every option and solution and then…. I checked a cart and there it was!  Lily, the store staff, and I literally jumped for joy! We had done what we set out to do and the outcome was what we had hoped it would be.

Today that picture frame sits on my dresser and every time I look at it I am reminded about how precious life lessons come in unexpected packages. The important message of persistence’s power and how if you stick to your plan and stay focused on the positive was imparted to my daughter and I that day and, because we paid attention, is something we both benefited from in our lives.