Hero

Stephen received a handmade blanket and stuffed lion from the knitting group at our church.  He immediately took to the lion, stroking it when he was upset.  I told him when I was his age and I broke my arm, my aunt gave me a stuffed lion and it helped me feel better when I was sick.  I still have my lion, who I named Aslan, and he reminds me of that time and when I was comforted.

Tonight, Stephen was thinking of names for his lion.

“Hero,” he decided.  “Because he’s my hero here.”

“That’s good he’s helping you,” I said.  “People made it special so that it could comfort a child in the hospital, and that turned out to be you.  It found the right person.”

“Our class made something to give to children in the hospital,” he said, stroking Hero.  “I didn’t understand then how important it was.  But now that I’m a child in the hospital, I understand the impact.  I never knew I would be a child in the hospital!  And I didn’t know how it would feel, and how much you need special things like Hero.  People don’t know how a little thing they do might be really important to someone else.”

“Yes, that’s why you should always be kind to others.  You never know what it might mean to them.  And you never know when you will be the one who needs help, and everyone needs help at times in their life.  Right now our family needs the help.”

So thank you to the strangers who knitted Hero with loving hands, thank you to the strangers who are praying for our family.  Thank you to our friends and family who are praying, bringing meals and helping with kids and hugging me and texting and facebooking me.  Thanks to everyone rallying around us as we experience being the family who needs help.  You are all meeting us in our time of need, and we are blessed.  Thank you, my heroes.