A few months ago Cal was telling us about a special needs girl falling at school. He was telling us about the the teacher saying, “Hey somebody go help her up,” when he started to chuckle… My God did my blood start to boil, “why in the hell are you laughing and why did you need to be asked to help this girl up?????”
Anybody who knows Cal… well, you probably have an idea of how this played out.
“Mom… she’s a really good friend of mine; I was already helping her by the time the teacher even said anything. She was giggling while I helped her up. I’m laughing just thinking about her giggling.”
Schwew… I thought I raised an asshole.
About 2 weeks or so later he came home from school and said he had a girlfriend; then he named this special needs girl. He said, “She always walks down the hall with me and another friend of mine and we eat lunch together. So we told her we are both her boyfriend…”
heart
melting
We did have a talk about how this girl doesn’t really understand and that Cal needs to be especially careful with her. He looked at me like I was the dumbest mofo on the face of the Earth. “Mom, I know. She’s a good friend of mine – I won’t do anything to hurt her or upset her, I promise.”
Today, we spent many hours traversing 2 Christmas tree farms – listen… a Christmas tree is not to be taken lightly, it’s serious stuff! We walked for about an hour at the first farm (Dan’s severe case of plantar fasciitis was not particularly fond of my discerning eye this afternoon…); the trees at this place were magnificent but they just weren’t big enough (when asked what size tree we were looking for Dan got a gleam in his eye and said, “ohhhhh about 8 feet high and just a tad wider than that…”).
I said to the kids, “Just be quiet as we’re leaving, let me do the talking. I’m going to tell them your dad got called into work and that’s why we’re leaving empty handed…” Dan laughed at me, saying it wasn’t really necessary to make an excuse but gosh dern it, I didn’t wanna hurt their feelings.
A google search (while still at the 1st tree farm… I felt so dirty) led us to a tree farm kinda out in the middle of nowhere. This farm is owned by a family we sorta know – Alex played ball with the oldest daughter for a season. During that season we didn’t have much interaction with this family so it took us the better part of an hour to piece together who they are and how we know them. Our acquaintance being so minimal – we didn’t even realize Cal’s friend from school is a member of this family until Alex noticed her coming out of the house.
I told Cal we saw the girl and he got a huge grin, “Really? that’s cool!”
The girls and I stood on the family porch chatting with the mom and older daughter while the men took care of securing the tree to the car; they joined us on the porch once it was strapped and ready to go.
I asked Cal if he’d like to say ‘hi’ to his friend; the girl’s mom had a look of bewilderment when Cal said, “Sure, yeah!” He was stinkin’ cute – took his hat of quick and messed with his hair…
And then this beautiful soul came out to say hi to her friend Calvin.
She was difficult to understand (her mom later asked Cal if he was able to understand her as he spent more time with her, he shook his head with confidence, “I always know what she’s saying to me”); but even with my lack of experience I knew that she was absolutely beside herself because her pal was standing at her front door.
She grabbed each of her family members and pointed to my boy, “it’s my Cal… it’s my Cal!” Her excitement and happiness was infectious – it was a great way to end our tree hunt.
Having said our ‘goodbyes’ and ‘Merry Christmases’ we walked to the car and I was overcome by 2 very different feelings.
Sadness… sadness that any mother would ever have such a look of amazement on her face simply because a kid was nice to her child. This woman was completely bewildered over the fact that a boy like Cal would be so genuinely kind to her baby girl… no mother should ever have to question whether their child is being treated well or has friends.
And, of course, the other emotion was absolute love for my own kid. Obviously we have taught our kids to be nice to everybody but Cal’s connection to this girl goes way beyond anything Dan or I have taught him… this is just a little boy who has the most beautiful heart I’ve ever known.
We were almost to the car, the tree farm family was talking with other customers and I was chatting up Cal a little when he said, “Oh.. hold on a sec mom,” then he turned and called out the girl’s name, she looked over and he waved, “I’ll see ya at school tomorrow!”
That little girl gave Cal the sweetest, purest smile… Cal looked up at me and smiled kinda sheepishly and I’ve never been more in love in my whole life….