We were invited to a dinner hosted by a former French ambassador to the Vatican. There were about 20 people at the dinner table, all adults except for my three children who were around 4, 7 and 9 years old. Dinner consisted of many courses and ended with cheese and fruits. As the cheese platter was being passed around, my youngest son, seated next to me, was nudging at me. When I turned my head to look at him, he was gesturing at me to look at the plate in front of me. There were raspberries on each plate that was placed in front of each guest. (Now, these were raspberries my children picked from my hostess’ backyard before dinner. The hostess, one can tell, was very proud to serve the raspberries grown in her own garden.) Well, there were little worms crawling out of most of these raspberries. Alarmed, I looked around the table at the other guests. I’m sure most of them saw the worms (it was hard not to notice as there were so many), but were totally pretending they didn’t notice and the conversation was flowing as before. It was impressive. I very quietly said to my children, “Eat it!” My wonderful children obliged me without a peep. I was trying to teach my children the value of being brave (having to eat something they didn’t want to) and kind (how embarrassing it would have been to the hostess if they made a scene).
Many years later, I talked to my daughter about the dinner. She told me how proud she was to be a contributing member of that special dinner where everyone behaved to create a wonderful moment.
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