True story: my uncle used to manage the personal finances for the godfather of all godfathers, Marlon Brando. I am both an uncle and a godfather to my nephew, who is a newly minted four-year-old. Don Vito Corleone has his understanding of what a godfather ought to be, and I have mine. I try to be a positive role model for my nephew, but there is only so much I (or anyone else) can do for him. Case in point: his very first holiday concert, which took place earlier this month.

For the concert, his daycare provider opted to corral all the little ones into one choral medley rather than the normal older brood and younger brood. Doubling the choir’s size fairly quadrupled the crowd, what with moms, dads, siblings, aunts, uncles, even neighbors braving the snowy roads, bedecked in their winter finery. When the kiddie choir shuffled into place, each of them looked for loved ones and waved, and we in the audience did the same.

When my nephew found us among the throng, he smiled broadly and waved with shy pride. But once he was set in place upon the riser, and the program director informed us what preparations went into the 25-minute performance, his expression soured. He had been to concerts before, but at those events he did something that he seems rather adept at—watching intently. Performing in front of a live audience was another matter altogether. In fact, it was out of the question. He would not sing one word from any of the songs, and the only choreography he followed was a (questionable) shoulder shimmy. It was as if a prank had been played upon him, and his face clouded over with doubt.

In an effort to coax him along, Mom and Dad waved to him, even miming the choreography back to him. When he realized no one was coming to rescue him from his discomfort, the clouds of doubt that hovered in his furrowed brow let loose, a cascade of tears flowing across the plains of his pinkish cheeks. Then, in a gesture both majestic in its innocence and heartbreaking in its pathos, he raised his fists to his face and rotated them in unison, rubbing the tears from his eyes.

While he fought to regain his composure, dozens upon dozens of kids surrounding him sang and gesticulated—some furtively, some exuberantly, but none of them while crying. It is no easy thing to watch a loved one struggle, but caught up in that moment as I was, I thought to myself, There’s a lesson to be learned here: life is rife with moments when each of us is stymied by an obstacle and frustrated by the doubt, fear and anger that such obstacles give rise to . . . and often there is nothing to be done for it but face it, acknowledge it, accept it, work through it.

Every single one of us has walked a mile or more in my nephew’s shoes. How have the fates attempted to thwart you in 2010? A friend of mine lost her mother this year. A family member lost both his father and a brother. Another, his grandfather. Others dear to me sought help for chemical dependency, and still more encountered serious health impairments. I was unemployed for the first time in nearly 15 years. In our own way, each of us experienced fear, doubt, anxiety or grief. My nephew wasn’t mindful of these things while he was on stage, but I was.

When Marlon Brando informed my uncle that his services were no longer required, my uncle’s resume had changed in no particular way, his degree remained as valid as it ever was, and he was as certified as a public accountant could be. But certain aspects were out of his control, just as offspring can’t alter a parent’s mortality, an individual can’t rewire his genetic predisposition and a grant-funded employee can’t re-engineer the mechanism that funds his work. What is in our control is the manner in which we choose to respond to obstacles in our path.

At the tender age of 4, my nephew knows nothing of Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience or of King’s I Have a Dream speech. But he knows what it is to struggle with the human condition. It is no small thing to process such complex and formidable emotions, which is why I’m so very proud of my nephew. In spite of feeling exposed, isolated and vulnerable, he neither fled the stage nor fought with the other kids who crowded around him on the risers. Instead, he stood tall, literally, and regained his composure. I wonder whether, 10 years from now, my nephew will remember this concert. Whether he does or not, he reminded me that the body politic is only as good as the individuals who constitute it.

St. Paul resident Christopher Welter is a collections assistant at the Minnesota Historical Society.