It wasn't her birthday today, or Christmas or Easter or anything like that. But it was a special day. Because she got to create a new friend.
We took her to the store where new friends are made and her eyes began to twinkle. This kind man with a jolly tummy and a look of joy about him handed her a little fabric heart and told her to make a wish. She looked perplexed at first, as if this over-sized child was kookoo. But she took a leap of faith anyways. Her tiny fingers curled slowly into a tight fist, her eyes with their ability to stare into one's soul shut tight and she brought her tiny hand to her own heart.
And the little girl made a wish.
No one will ever know exactly what she wished for. But she wished long. And she wished hard. And it didn't take a scientist to see that today the wish she wished for was wished with all her heart.
Without being taught or trained or told, she has faith. Faith. Simple and pure and beautiful faith. In a silly little fabric heart that came out of a pile of a million other silly little fabric hearts, having no significance what-so-ever to the adults standing around watching this little girl make her precious wish.
Remember how I said I missed being little? This is why, my friends. I forget what it's like to just believe in something that easily. These days it's hard for me to have faith in love, in goodness, in even Christmas, all of which are pretty universal truths. But to have faith in a wish made on a heart at the store is amazing. She is amazing.
She taught me a lot today. My eyes were filling with tears. I felt silly and awkward and overly-emotional, but I also felt warm.
I can't go back to being 3. I can't erase the things that have happened to me in my life which have tainted me, desensitized me, scared me, taunted me, changed me. But I can focus a little more heartily on those things which have shaped me into who I am today, the biggest of which being love and faith.
Love.
And faith.
Like a child.
~C~
