The Good

I read this post by this woman. And my heart was touched.

When does the spirit leave? In a child, I have to believe that the spirit goes when God calls and the body left behind may yet feel pain and illness, but the soul is safely in God's powerful hands. In an adult, I fear the spirit leaves whenever it is released by it's owner. Maybe that is when one is still living on this earth. Still physically able and willing, but heartbroken, dead inside. How many spiritless bodies move amongst us daily? Can we give them any hope?

Today I met a little boy in the middle of a Sunday Grocery Shopping at a Big Major Warehouse Bulk Shopping Center. He was, as he called out to me, subltey "different". Yet I saw in him my own son, my own daughter, my own self and so... I spent a moment talking with him about the video he was buying, and listening to him quote word for word lines from a cartoon that is a minimum of 60 years old, in his little boy voice. His mother reached out and grasped my upper arm. She grinned broadly, and with tears in her eyes, asked me, "Are you a teacher?"

I am not. I am just a mom. Just the parent of two kids with special needs, the friend to a parent of a child with significant needs, the friend to a parent with insurmountable needs, the neighbor to a parent of a child who is non-verbal, the community member of all the parents of all the children who are different, smarter, younger, more detailed, more intricate, more engaged, more open than others. I smiled at this little boy's mom and said, "no, I'm just someone with some very special friends". She smiled, her little boy continued with his monologue as I waved goodbye over my shoulder.

Such a small gift... the gift of 2 minutes, the gift of a kind smile, a warm welcome, an open heart. Oh God... thank you for this opportunity. And thank you for the awareness.