On the day my daughter watched me not win.
September 1, 2026
by Richard Yung Chung
So … I finished my doctorate in my fifties.
I want you to sit with that for a moment, because I’m still a little proud of it and I don’t get many chances to mention it. A Doctor of Ministry. The only one in my family to get that far. I did it late, I did it while working, and when it was done I was – there’s no modest way to say this – quite pleased with myself.
So I took the whole family down to Portland for the graduation ceremony. Sue, the children, everyone. We sat in the hall waiting for the names to be called.
But before the degrees, they handed out awards. Top student in each category. And one of them was first-place honours for the best thesis paper.
Now, I hadn’t told anyone I might win. I didn’t know that I would. But somewhere in the back of my chest was a small, unspoken hope, the kind you don’t admit to even while you’re having it.
And I looked over at my daughter, and I realized she had the same hope. Only she wasn’t hiding hers at all. She was sitting there lit up, absolutely certain, turned toward me with this expression of enormous pride. Oh, Dad. Already congratulating me with her face, waiting for the name.
And they called someone else’s name.
I watched it land on her. I watched the certainty go out of her face and something else come in. Confusion first, and then a kind of deflation, and then disappointment. She couldn’t believe it. She genuinely could not believe her father hadn’t won.
And here’s the thing I’ve never quite got over: I wasn’t as disappointed as she was. Not close. I’d got my degree, I was fifty-something, I knew what the day was actually about. But she had built something up in her head about her dad, and I had failed to deliver it, and I sat there in that hall feeling sorry – not for me, but for her.
I had let her down. That was the whole feeling. Not I lost. Just: she believed something about me and I couldn’t make it true.
So I did what any father would do.
I took everyone out for an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet.
It works. It genuinely works. Nobody stays sad through a buffet. By the second plate the graduation was a happy day again and my daughter was fine and everyone was full.
But I still see her face. Twelve, thirteen years on, and I can call up that exact half-second … the pride going one way and the disappointment coming the other – as clearly as if it were this morning.
Now, I’m a preacher, so of course I started composing the teaching moment in my head. We do that. Every family disappointment is a chance to say something wise.
I had options.
“Hey – I got my doctorate in my fifties. Only one in the family. That’s an accomplishment.” True. Reasonable.
Or: “Better late than never!” Also true. Slightly weaker.
Or the classic: “It’s not about winning. It’s about trying your best.”
I like that one. It’s good advice. But you want to be careful how often you use it around children, because they are listening more closely than you think and they will bring it back.
“Dad, really? It’s not about winning, it’s about trying your best? So I don’t need to come first in my class?”
Well – yes. But no. That’s not – forget I said that. Let’s go to the buffet.
Here’s what I’ve actually come to think, all these years later.
I don’t believe my daughter was disappointed about a thesis award. I don’t think she cared about the thesis at all. What she wanted was to see her father be the best one in the room – because that’s what children do. They build a picture of you and they’d like the world to confirm it.
And the world mostly won’t. The world will keep calling other names. That’s simply how it goes, and part of growing up is watching your parents not win, over and over, and learning to love them anyway.
I think that day was one of the first times she saw it.
I could have talked her out of the feeling. I could have explained that awards don’t matter, that I was fine, that fifty-something-and-finished is its own kind of victory. All true. None of it would have touched the thing that had actually happened, which was that a young woman had just watched her father be ordinary in public.
So I’m glad I didn’t give the speech. I’m glad I took her for buffet instead.
I’ve received a great many honours in this life. Not that one.
But I have never once forgotten the look on her face when she thought I was going to win.
Richard
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Prior Newsletters from Slow Wisdom :
You and Your Tongue … August 25th
The Secret To My Vegetables … August 18th
Me and My Rabbits … August 11th
The City That Forgot Me … August 4th
The Day Jesus Was Rude … July 28th
My Fifty Dollar Titanic … July 21st
I Shouted At The Prime Minister … July 15th
I Told My Church I Ate Grasshoppers … July 7th
Thankful For The Hospital Food … July 1st
My Goal Was To Finish and Not Die … June 24th
The Wedding Afro … June 17th