Hero

You know when toddlers put on the biggest boots they can find by the door and wobble around, everyone laughs and gets a picture and then discuss that they have big shoes to fill? Or how about the little one that stays in at recess in kindergarten to get the number three right? The child that joins a team and stops the game when a member on the other team gets hurt, to help them up. The one in the store that repeats mom, mommy a thousand times, you are ignoring them but in frustration finally exclaim what? Just for them to say, “I love you!” The same child that punches his sister for not carrying his back pack, but also punches a boy four years older for bugging her. The one that turns into a steely teen, stubborn as you are. Rude, nonchalant, moody but will still say “love you” in front of anyone.

After the teen angst, and a thousand moments that causes more grey then needed, they have no reservation to pick you up and carry you around, claiming how small you are. Or nicknaming you Little Buddy, because now that you are older you cry a little easier. Meanwhile you have trials and moments in life that are hard. Your kids do too and there is no shortcut through it. You do get to a parallel and you flow along in comfort. There are really hard parts we get to! Ones that seem insurmountable, sometimes we are just an observer not knowing how much or even if we should help. Brutal to hold hands with a younger version of yourself through that. We just want to absorb all the hurt, be the bridge over the pain, slowing the toxic thoughts they have about themselves or life in general.

Then there is perception. You see through your eyes, your mouth might say otherwise, you evaluate damage by your standards. Deciding how you might deal with something if it were you. Guilty! I am glass half full, but I have doubt first. I choose middle ground to get others up, sometimes that has me on the wrong end of the see saw. In most of us we root for the underdog, maybe not having real faith at first, but as they claw upwards, it starts a fire that everyone stands around and slowly the cheers build… My son is blind, black, darkness, both eyes. Today I came home and he was in front of his computer, with a full page of code in front of him, that he had written! Today, “I can’t” , doesn’t exist.