Are You A Pirate?

Well, it's time for our first 'story' to be published on the blog... leave it to Emily to be the main character!

We went to a grocery store today that is not our usual since it was on our way to a friends house that we were to drop off dinner for. We've been there several times, but as Emily gets older, her awareness of people and circumstances changes. As we steered our cart through the produce section, an employee walked by us and said 'Good morning, girls.' Emily took one look at him and the patch he wore over his eye, and said 'Arrgghh... it's a Pirate,' in her most 'piratey-like' voice. I gave her one of those looks that is supposed to communicate 'hush, right NOW' without words spoken, but she didn't seem to get it. She continued to make a few pirate comments which were all quite loud enough for the man to hear. I realized my looks weren't going to cut it, so I then said to her 'Emily, that's enough... That man is not wearing his eye patch as part of a costume or because he's trying to be silly.' I was embarrassed that he had heard that she called him a pirate and knew that I had to take the opportunity to teach her a life lesson. I prayed for wisdom and grace as I addressed her comments with her. It went something along the lines of this; "God has given you a healthy body that has 2 arms, 2 legs, 2 ears, 2 eyes, but sometimes babies are born different than you and their bodies don't work as well as yours does. Sometimes there are accidents that happen after we're born that hurt parts of our bodies and then they don't work the same as before." I explained to her that the man's eye was different than hers and that it didn't work the same as her eyes. When she asked me what happened to his eye, I responded that I didn't know. I remembered having a conversation with a friend of mine; her son has cerebral palsy and is in a wheelchair. She told me that she would much rather have children come up to her and ask her why her son was in a wheelchair than to have parents cause things to be more awkward by hushing their children with shame and emarrassment. So, I asked Emily if she would like to know why he needed to wear an eyepatch, and she said she would. We made an extra loop around the produce aisles and approached the 'pirate man'. I first apologized to him for Emily's comments and then told him that I wanted to use this as an opportunity to teach her that some people are different than her and that God made each of us special even if our bodies don't work the same way. He told us that he was not offended by the comments (he hears them a lot since he works in a grocery store in a community jam-packed full of kids!), but he also said that he REALLY appreciated that I was taking the opportunity to explain things to her rather than just ignoring it like most folks do. He told Emily that she was very lucky to have 2 eyes... he used to as well, but about 15 years ago, he was in a situation where someone was very jealous of him and pulled a gun out and shot him in the face. He said that even though he didn't have his one eye anymore, he was very lucky to be alive. I could tell that Emily was really thinking that through. I thanked him for his willingness to share with us and told him the next time we see him at the grocery store, we would call him Mr. Andrew instead of the 'Pirate-Man'. He smiled and said, 'I'll see you soon'.

I have a feeling there will be many more opportunities for life lessons as Emily grows older and her awareness of people and their differences from herself becomes more astute. I pray that everyone who finds themselves at the expense of my child's learning process will be as gracious as Mr. Andrew was today.

Here's a picture of Emily in a real fire truck. She took a trip to the hardware store with Daddy and was so curious about the fire truck that the firemen invited her to sit inside and try on their hats.