In 2001, one of Mrs. G’s students came up to her after class and asked her if she had read the bestselling book called Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand. He told her it was about this amazing true story about a thoroughbred that became a symbol of hope to many Americans during the Great Depression. Mrs. G. was so swept up that one of her students was using the phrase symbol of hope and referencing the Great Depression, that she didn’t bat an eye when he went on to earnestly tell her that the most inspirational part of this book was the fact that Seabiscuit had only three legs… that he was a three-legged race horse.

So, naturally, Mrs. G. went home and relayed the story to her family at dinner. When she got to the part about Seabiscuit having only three legs, the silence was deafening. Mrs. G. would like to point out that when she is not cooking and cleaning and educating her two kids, she spends a good portion of her week educating other people’s children and reminding them for the 2,345th time the difference between there, their and they’re and that ’cause is not a word. Yes, it would be hard to gallop with only three legs, but cut her some slack. And that student that punk’d her with this false information? She failed his ass. She didn’t really, but she wanted to.

I find my peace in learning that I am not special. I am pretty much the same as everyone else. We all want the same things underneath it all: to be free from fear and from pain. To have our families be well. To be fed, to be housed, to be loved and to love.

In trying to give up my need to stand out and to be important, I find a deep source of compassion and humor. It is when I know how things “should be” that I get into trouble. I have to let them be what they are.

What a ridiculous life! We all fart and poop and show inappropriate body parts by accident and slip and fall and it is ok. It’s ok. We laugh and love and go on.

That’s all for now.

Every Friday on the way to work, I hear the StoryCorps music at the end of the local NPR station’s broadcast of “Morning Edition.” I pull into my parking place and turn off the car, ready to listen.

Last Week’s Story really got me. It sums up everything Flawed But Authentic is about to me - how we make changes by showing up and paying attention. Life is a required course. I think the guy in the story gets an A.

So it struck a chord when out on their drive last week, Mrs. G’s daughter reminded her of the whistle. Years ago, when her kids were 12 and 8, Mrs. G., after much fretting and lecturing that involved traffic charts and crosswalk safety re-enactments, finally decided she would let her children walk together, holding hands, up two blocks and across a busy street to the QFC grocery store. The fact that they were willing to hold hands the entire way bears witness to how long they had been begging to make this trip alone, how desperate they were to get away from Mrs. G. purchase candy and pop on their own terms.

Mrs. G’s husband liked this idea even less than his wife, but he recognized his inclination to be overprotective and agreed to let the kids walk to the store…on one condition: they wear these gargantuan whistles around their necks.

Mrs. G’s daughter who, keep in mind, was twelve, wasn’t pleased at the idea of wearing a jumbo whistle around her neck, much less a jumbo whistle on a neon orange lanyard around her neck. It offended her sense of self-reliance and fashion. She fussed, she fumed, she cussed him behind his back mocked her dad, but she relented because, much like today, she wanted to roll with a little freedom. Mrs. G’s son didn’t care one way or the other. He was just in it for the Skittles.

“What was more frustrating than the size of the whistle,” said Mrs. G’s daughter as she drove, “was the fact that I knew it was pointless. I knew, even then, that if I blew this whistle, all that would happen is that someone in the neighborhood would hear it and think who is that idiot blowing that whistle, and when are they going to stop?”

All these years later, Mrs. G. sees her daughter’s point. The whistle really wasn’t a state-of-the-art security measure. But she also remembers her baby girl’s toothless grins and how her first steps on this earth were in the direction of her dad’s knees. Mrs. G. remembers rescuing small hands from drawers about to shut and kissing boo boos when she wasn’t there to break a fall. Mrs. G. understands that most parents will do anything, no matter how illogical, no matter how embarrassing, no matter, as in the case of Dad’s whistle, how futile, to keep their children safe. And, all in all, that’s not a bad way to parent-to do the best that you can. And then a little bit more.