My Daughter Amy

י"א ניסן תשס"ט
Raven 11

I was a young divorced mother of three young children. My middle child is my daughter Amy. Intelligent, strong-willed, determined, bold, compassionate Amy. My daughter has been an advocate for the suffering, for those in need, for those who cannot advocate for themselves since she was a little girl. Amy's compassion is not a wishy-washy bleeding-heart kind of compassion. Her compassion has a strong voice.

My daughter had a friend in need. Her friend's mother was in a bad way and had to go away by herself for a few months. During this time, the mother was unable to give a home to her daughter, my daughter's friend. This woman and her daughter had no one, no one at all to help them. I didn't know either of them. But, my daughter knew the woman's daughter, my daughter's friend. Only a child herself, Amy asked me to take her friend into our home for a few months and to give the friend a safe place to stay. I refused, repeatedly, for weeks. I could barely provide for my own three children, let alone the additional child of a woman I didn't know. I had never even met the woman, the friend's mother, the woman in a bad way with need for someone to take her daughter in for a few months, for free. The woman had no money, nothing. There was going to be no compensation for taking this woman's daughter into my home, none at all.

Amy wouldn't let it rest. She kept at me until I relented and agreed to take her friend into our home while the mother couldn't provide for her own daughter. Amy made the case for her friend and kept at me until I saw the merit of agreeing with her that this was the right thing to do. This is the strength of my daughter Amy, a strength that has only grown more perfect as she has grown up into a beautiful young woman with a family of her own.

Ever courageous and tempered with the wisdom of overcoming her own difficulties in life, my daugher Amy is a blessing in action.