“Mommy, can you turn this into a robot?”
As the Transformer transferred from 5-year-old hands to Mommy hands, it went crashing down to the hard, tile floor.
I didn’t realize there were injuries until a few minutes later when the tearful child came over to me.
“Can we glue it?”
The plastic dinosaur leg had fractured and separated.
As I looked over the damage, the tears got heavier, and I realized something that I couldn’t see before.
In the previous pace of life, I was never fully able to feel and comprehend the magnitude of sadness that could come from a beloved toy being harmed.
In my hardened, adult mind, it was just a toy. The emotions and mourning of a damaged toy simply felt like an inconvenience to me.
In my realization today, all my little boy wanted and needed was to be hugged and held while he felt sadness for his treasure.
It was not for me to determine whether this was worthy of tears or not.
It was not for me to point out at this moment a lesson we could take from this experience.
It was just to hold him while he was sad and acknowledge that to him, this was a big deal.
In this day, I can feel grateful for altered perspectives from the changing pace of our current existence.
Maybe slowing down can allow us to feel emotions that were previously dismissed due to the perception of not having the time.
STATUS OF THE DINOSAUR…
Surgeon Dad used special magic glue, and dinosaur is immobilized like this until the glue hardens.