Monday, July 20, 2009

A heart bigger than this world

I heard Maile in her room doing a combination of crying and talking when she was supposed to be going to sleep. I walked in there to see her sitting on the edge of her bed hugging her knees and tears streaming down her face. I asked her what was wrong, expecting her to tell me something silly like she does sometimes when she's not ready for bed just yet.

Instead? This is what she said:

"I was praying to God for Kale to be okay. I just love him so much."

I, of course, started bawling right along with her.

I told her that he's just fine and will continue to be fine. Mike and I try to explain to her as often as possible that just because he cannot see anything that he's not missing out on anything. It's so hard when they're that young--they just cannot comprehend why things are the way they are. She still asks from time to time if Kale will see when he's older, when he's a grown-up. And then other times she'll say matter-of-factly that he is blind and always will be. I don't know that she fully understand what that means though. She's asked me a few times why God made Kale blind--and I honestly never know what to say. I have so many issues with religion and faith--the last person in the world that should be explaining these kinds of things is me. But I did my best as I will always try to do and told her that we're very lucky to have been chosen to be Kale's family. That out of all the other families in the world, someone/God picked us. We are the perfect family for him.

She seemed to like that.

I kinda do, too.

5 comments:

Monika @ Lovely Bookshelf said...

(((((hugs)))))

Anonymous said...

Aw, Maile. :-)

onemuse said...

OK--now I'm crying. What a sweet angel girl.

Lara McKnight said...

I like to remind my kids that we can't always control what happens to us, but we can control how we choose to respond.

Kale will need a strong big sister to "show" him the world. Her loving concern is a gift to him, as he is to her.

~Me said...

This just made me cry. Maile is an amazing little girl...and Kale is SO lucy to have her for a big sister. And to have you and Mike for parents. Keep up the great work!