美文赏析 My Mother’s Gift

　　A few months ago, my mother came to visit, I took off a day from work and treated her to lunch. The restaurant bustled with noontime activity as businesspeople made deals and glanced at their watches. In the middle of all this sat my mother, now retired , and I . From her face I could see that she relished the pace of the work world.

　　"Mom, you must have been terribly bored staying at home when I was a child , " I said .

　　"Bored? Housework is boring. But you were never boring. "

　　I didn't believe her, so I pressed . "Surely children are not as stimulating as a career."

　　"A career is stimulating, " she said . "I'm glad I had one. But a career is like an open balloon. It remains inflated only as long as you keep pumping. A child is a seed. You water it . You care for it the best you can. And then it grows all by itself into a beautiful flower. "

　　Just then, looking at her , I could picture us sitting at her kitchen table once again , and I understood why I kept that flaky brown dandelion in our old family dictionary pressed between two crumpled bits of paper towel.

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