Story for the Week
Corinne attended her very first prom this weekend. My favorite Josh Groban song has always been (and will probably always be) “You Raise Me Up.” And you’re probably wondering how those two statements are even remotely related to one another or to the title of this post. Allow me to explain.😊
One of Corinne’s friends attended prom with her boyfriend, who is a senior this year. When a group of them were sitting around talking about it several weeks ago, Corinne commented that she wished she could go because it sounded like so much fun. As an underclassman, she couldn’t just buy herself a ticket. She would have to go as the guest of a junior or senior. One of the friends in the group told Corinne that she could go as his plus-one. He would buy the tickets. She (I) would pay him back.
So it was a “date” but not a date.
Now to the Josh Groban connection. I discovered Groban when he appeared on the show Ally McBeal. If you’ve never seen it, it’s a “legal comedy drama” from the late 1990s/early 2000s, starring Calista Flockhart as attorney Ally McBeal. In this particular episode, Groban played Malcolm Wyatt, a high school student who asked one of his best friends to the prom (ah ha!😉). She agreed but then told him she was going with someone else, so he wanted to sue her to force her to go with him.
Of course, suing the girl he was secretly in love with didn’t work, but Malcolm did sing two songs in the episode—one at his mother’s funeral and one at the prom. Neither of the songs was “You Raise Me Up,” but it set me on the path of listening to Groban because…well, he’s amazing…duh.
So Corinne…prom…Ally McBeal episode…Josh Groban… “You Raise Me Up”…let’s continue.
The song was written by Rolf Løvland and released in 2002, but the first time he performed it was at his mother’s funeral. The lyrics can exemplify many ways for someone to be “raised up”—a believer by God, a best friend, a spouse, a child by a parent.
“You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders
You raise me up to more than I can be.“
The last example—a child by a parent—that’s the one that ties everything back to the title.
Corinne has always been a bit of an over-achiever (understatement), and Dennis and I never hesitated to tell her how proud we were. Many times, she asked us to stop telling her. She said it was annoying because we said it so much. I tried to explain to her that we almost couldn’t help it because she DID make us proud so often. I have been known to say that I really couldn’t have asked for a better kid.
She is by no means perfect. We deal with the normal teenage angst and attitude, but she continues to make me proud. I do try to save the “I’m really proud of you” comments now for the things I know she’s proud of. I read a short story by Amanda Prowse recently that made me realize that saying it too often can dilute how meaningful it is, almost like the boy who cried wolf.
That said, I also not so recently sent Corinne a link to a TikTok from motivational speaker Jordan Toma, who goes by the user name @imjustakidwithaniep. This particular video had the header “I wish someone told me this when I was 14.” Part of what he said was this: “Right now, your mom can see your potential way before you can see it for yourself. Your mom might be annoying you…but your mom is not really trying to be annoying. She’s trying to remind you of who you are, and she can see who you’re going to become.”
It’s a fine line we walk as parents to raise up our kids enough so that they can see what we see in them without making them feel like we’re just saying it because we’re their parents. Toma’s video actually helped Corinne see why we always told her how proud we were. I think now she appreciates it more because she’s starting to see what I see.
Book Review
⭐⭐⭐⭐
4 Stars for The Game by Amanda Prowse
A Short Story
52 pages (135 total including a preview of Poppy Day)
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication Date: October 24, 2013
Purchased on Amazon
Publisher’s Description
It’s every mother’s worst nightmare…
Gemma Peters has everything a 16-year-old could want. Two loving parents, a good school, and close friends. Maybe sometimes her parents are a little overbearing, a little too adoring. But that’s the same for all teenagers, right?
Then, on the night of the school play, happy-go-lucky Gemma disappears without a trace. Where has she gone? Why has she been lying to her family? And, most importantly, will she ever come home?
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Main Characters:
- Gemma Peters – 16-year-old high school/secondary school student, well-liked, just starred in the school play
- Jackie and Neil Peters – Gemma’s parents, prone to praising everything she does
- Stacey Peters – Gemma’s 14-year-old sister
I wanted something quick to read while I waited for a new release, and this was the perfect choice at 52 pages. I have fallen in love with Amanda Prowse’s books over the last several years, and it is only recently that I have discovered she has a past in short stories. I decided to go all the way back to her first, released nearly nine years ago. While I haven’t read any others yet, they all currently live on my Kindle.😊
The Game tells the story of Gemma Peters’ disappearance. One minute she is taking a bow after the school play to resounding applause, and the next minute, she is gone. Having told her mother she wanted to walk home and having told her friends that she was getting picked up, Gemma seems to have vanished. Clearly, she planned her disappearance, but when the story begins, we don’t know why.
This story really focuses on Jackie and Neil and how they cope very differently with the speed of the investigation and their own desperation to find Gemma. And of course, there is Stacey, who by the time Gemma has been gone for a couple of months, begins to act out because she is the daughter who remains, yet the focus is still on Gemma. An underlying theme here is the self-esteem challenges of being a teenage girl, wondering if a parent’s praise is actually praise or just empty words because it’s their job to lift you up.
I would agree with other reviewers that the end is abrupt. I feel like I know why it ended the way it did (not giving anything away), but a bit more resolution would have been good. It’s a short story, so it’s not going to be as detailed as a full-blown book, but it totally could have been.
There are definitely more Amanda Prowse short stories in my future.
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