It’s the other day, Friday, and I’m saying goodbye to my children’s cousin, the little girl of My Bride’s sister, a bright little six-year-old with wavy brown hair and the best manners.
‘Why thank you for asking,’ she would say all week whenever I asked how her day was, her day at the camp that I’d take and retrieve her and my three children from in the woods not 10 minutes from our house.
‘Who taught you such good manners?’ I had asked, making sure my own children were around to benefit from the conversation. ‘Was it your mother or your father?’
‘Well,’ she said in her soft voice. ‘My mother and father both taught me certain words, but I’m the one who put them together.’