Person of the Year and Personal Memories

In this month’s issue we honor our Preston Hollow Person of the Year, Abigail Williams (Page 18).

I first met Abby co-hosting a celebration for our sons’ grade at her home. The two of us proudly wore boy mom  T-shirts, and admittedly, we both paired a stylish overcoat and riding boots with our looks.

Since then, we’ve spent countless hours talking about our proudest accomplishments. We’ve bonded over striking a balance between helicopter mothering and free-range parenting, and we’ve both tried to instill a strong sense of civic responsibility in our (now adult) sons.

Researching the work Abby has done in our community in an attempt to properly highlight the significant strides she’s made in public education, a memory of our initial introduction arose that better serves to convey what she’s all about than my listing her many virtues and accomplishments. 

Our first meeting took place decades ago. We were mid-conversation when a shivering little one burst out of the pool and, without hesitation, Abby darted up the stairs to retrieve a warm sweatsuit for him. 

With me in tow we entered her youngest’s room, and a familiar scent hit me. 

We, too, were housing a bearded dragon, or some scaled creature of the sort, whose up to 24-inch growth spurts continued for years. I’m not certain either of us knew what we were agreeing to and, as expected, having our youngsters follow through with the aquarium upkeep was a weekly chore for both parent and child.

As the kids lined up to hold the amphibian, one turned to ask who would be cleaning the aquarium, the precocious 6-year-old lamenting, “Why do we have to? Why can’t somebody else do it?”

 Abby, handing him a popsicle to add a little sugar-free charm to her response, said, “Because young man, you are an able-bodied person who should never ask someone else to do your work.”

When she and I met to chat about our honoring her as Preston Hollow People’s Person of the Year, the two of us, as usual, spent the initial part of the conversation catching up on our boys. 

As the conversation turned to discussing United to Learn’s wrap-around approach borrowed from Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, we again related our personal experiences of raising children, acknowledging the importance of children being made to feel safe, understood, accepted, inspired, and challenged. 

As we wrapped up our couple hours of talking, we traded a few last stories about our sons, Abby remarking, “The only people (my son) is not accepting of, is the ones who are not accepting of others.” 

As is the trunk, so are the branches.