The Innocence of Children

I was reminded yesterday by my husband of an encounter our then 5 1/2 year old had last summer at the beach.

We don't often go to the beach...I'm a bit of a wuss, and spent the entire time wrapped in a blanket on the grass. And really, "beach" is a bit of an overstatement. It's about 200 feet of shoreline, and most of the summer it's closed by the Health Unit because of the geese...but I digress.

We took the kids to the beach and the little one was happily making sand castles and sticking her feet in the shallow water with Daddy. Daytona, who was 5 1/2 at the time, sought of the companionship of some kids her own age. It's never hard when there is sand and buckets and water involved. For a while, she played on her own, and then a little girl joined her. The girl was tall, slim and had beautiful blond hair. I would say she was probably 7 going on 8. I was about 50 feet away, but could see clearly that this little girl had a disability. Her arms were very short, as if both her upper arm and forearm were about 1/2 the size they would normally be, and her hands were misshapen and twisted. It was obviously a condition that she had been born with. Given that, she played very well and didn't seem to need any special consideration...she moved a bucket and shovel just as good as the rest of the kids. At one point, I saw her and Daytona stand up and chat, and then they were back making their sandcastle and moat. Eventually, Daddy ushered everyone into the water to clean off the sand and Daytona said good-bye to her new friend.

My husband and I discussed how wonderful we thought it was that Daytona played with the girl as though she weren't any different, and how proud we were of her...of course, we did this quietly at the back of the van as we were packing up. We didn't say anything to Daytona. We were about 2-3 minutes into our drive home when Daytona said, "Mom, did you notice anything different about that girl?" I lied, "No." Daytona continued, "She asked me if I noticed anything different about her, and I told her no, because she looked just like me." There was a slight pause and a statement, like the lightbulb had turned on, "Wait a minute, she didn't have any thumbs!"

I'm not sure that my story is able to convey how much my heart expands every time I think of that story. To this day, Daytona only saw that the girl was missing thumbs, and only because she went looking for something to be wrong. Imagine if we all lived like children, assuming that everyone is equal, not looking for the difference.