Yu Seung-hui
After moving to a new neighborhood, I found it hard to adjust to life here. Since I didn’t know anyone nearby, I had no one to ask about where to buy daily necessities or which hospitals were good. So I walked around trying to figure things out on my own. Then at some point, my son who was in the fourth grade of elementary school began picking up bits of information and sharing them with me.
“Mom, they say the internal medicine clinic on the second floor across the street is really good.”
“Mom, there’s a new coffee shop in front of our house, and the owner is really kind.”
“I think we should buy fruit from the owner of the shop up ahead. It’s full of customers.”
I found it both admirable and amusing that my son would chatter about things that his friends had probably told him. When I asked him how he knew all those things, he said he had found them out by asking the shop owners personally. He proudly added that he had become friends with them.
Curious about what he meant, I went with my son to buy some fruit from the shop in front of our house. As we approached the shop, my son and the shop owner greeted each other warmly. I asked the kind shop owner how he knew my son.
“Your son is very polite and friendly. He visits my shop every day and boasts about his mom, dad, and sister. He says his mom is pretty and she’s a great cook, adding that he feels so safe with her. He also says about his dad . . .”
The shop owner kept talking about my stories as well as my husband’s and my daughter’s. He said my son would drop by every day and share stories with him. Feeling a bit shy, I thanked him for kindly listening to my son, and when I was about to leave, he added:
“I’ve become friends with ○○. Where else can I find a boy like him who speaks so kindly to someone my age? Whenever he passes by, I give him a piece of fruit because I just want to. So please don’t scold him for getting free stuff.”
As we headed back after saying goodbye and promising to visit often, we came across a coffee shop. My son ran up to the owner, calling her “Auntie!” and he introduced me to her.
“Oh, hello! You’re his mom, are you? He’s always talked so proudly about you.”
The owner of this shop, too, was someone I hadn’t met before, but she spoke about me and my daughter as if she had already known us well.
“It seems that my son, full of family love, has talked a lot about my family. I hope he hasn’t caused you any inconvenience or trouble in your business. I’m sorry!”
“No, he hasn’t. Many kids just pass by without saying anything, but this little boy always stops his bike and asks how I’m doing. He’s so cute and thoughtful.”
It was a new experience for me to hear these kinds of stories from the nearby shop owners after moving here, but what amazed me the most was my son’s ability to interact with other people. On the way home, I asked him if he ever felt shy talking about those things.
“I really want to boast about my family. Is it wrong to boast about my mom and my sister?”
I knew my son was friendly with adults, but I always thought it was just because he was expressive. Hearing his pure, heartfelt response filled with love for his family made me feel both grateful and deeply moved.
I reflected on how boldly I boasted about Heavenly Father and Mother—how much I loved my heavenly family members and felt proud of them. I give thanks to God for giving me children, precious gifts, so I can learn from them and have these realizations, though I am slow to understand. As a child of God, I want to proudly proclaim Father and Mother wherever I go.