A Lesson Learned

My daughter came home from college for the first time this weekend. We were so excited to see her, and yet I knew she would come home with plans that didn’t include her family. I didn’t want to make that a big deal. I just wanted to enjoy the bits of time she gave us. So on her first evening home I asked her agenda, mainly due to sharing cars. She went on to tell me about Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

“But I told everyone I couldn’t do anything on Sunday. I told them I was spending time with my family that day,” she said.

Immediately my mind flashed back The Cosby Show. Over the years, we’ve loved watching the reruns with our kids. We’ve probably seen most of the episodes multiple times. Anyway, her words seemed to mimic Denise Huxtable’s on her first weekend home from college.

I looked at my daughter. “You got that from Denise, on The Cosby Show, didn’t you?”

She laughed. “I really did think of that, how her family wanted to see her but she was so busy with her friends. Then she told her friends she had to spend a day with her family.”

Sometimes that visual image stays with them much longer than mere words. So thank you, Bill Cosby, for lots of laughs and family memories—and even some lessons learned!