![\"benjgrad2\"](\"https:\/\/brianfarreybooks.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/benjgrad2.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nI guess you could call it a gift. That certainly implies that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not learned but more natural. But I like to think it goes beyond that. I, too, have seen my husband work with children. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been a teacher for over fourteen years and, even outside the classroom, he relates to children like no one else I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen.<\/p>\n
Children gravitate to him. In some invisible realm we can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t measure or detect with science, they instinctively know that he understands them. Maybe it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s empathy. I can see how you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d call it that.<\/p>\n
The closest I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve come to locking onto what it is\u00e2\u20ac\u201dmy husband\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gift\u00e2\u20ac\u201dis to label it as compassion. And even that description seems inadequate. What he does\u00e2\u20ac\u201dsomething that seems to require no effort on his part, and yet often requires Herculean diligence in most of us\u00e2\u20ac\u201dis more than just pausing to consider someone else\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perspective. He connects on a level so deep as to be indistinguishable from the person he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s connecting with.<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not deifying him. My husband has his bad days. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s had those kids in his classroom that many would label unreachable. But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen him walk back into situations that seemed hopeless, determined to try and try and try because he can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t not<\/i> try to find that connection. Like a laptop constantly in search of a wi-fi signal. But his battery doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t die. If anything, the need to find that signal makes him stronger.<\/p>\n
Whether or not he knows it, my husband has taught me a lot. About love. About strength of conviction. And about compassion. He stands today as the person I most want to be like. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t shake the feeling that if I could tap into whatever it is that fuels his compassion and access even a fraction of what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s there, I would be a better person. I know this.<\/p>\n
Yesterday was the end of three long years of work to earn his master\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. In the fall, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll start work in the Minneapolis school district, doing a job that fulfills and exhausts at the same time. I know he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s up to the task. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just no way I could be prouder of him.<\/p>\n