We Cover For Each Other

I'm booked to leave for Denver in couple of hours. Most of my closest colleagues have already departed for the most important conference of the year. This morning, a graduate student e-mailed in a panic to say that she had forgotten a needed video file when she got on the airplane. I was happy to reply that I could swing by the Department and pick up the file before going to the airport. In such small ways, I'm able to cover for the lapses of colleagues, friends, and especially family. Likewise, they can cover for me when I err. For all our great abilities and potential, we still make silly mistakes. Fallibility is as essential to the human soul and intellect as is the potential for love or great achievement. I was never a great fan of letting my children "suffer the consequences" of their errors--particularly if those were expressions of human frailty rather than willful defiance. All of us, children and adults, need cover--which is to say that we need each other.