A major secret crush is brewing around here this weekend
. And I agree the object of her affections is just about the most wonderful boy
on earth.
Four years her senior, I can only begin to imagine how
she feels so important when he pays so much attention to her. Chase’s buddy who
is at Trent for three days is so gracious and so inclusive. Offers for her to
go on tube with him, remarks on her nail polish, plays with her on the
trampoline, claps for her when she does slalom on her skis. Asks her how she
slept and blows the fire off her burnt marshmellow…awwwwww so sweet.
And I can see her falling….the little sweet smile on her
lips, the way she braids her hair to ensure waves in the morning, the place she makes for him at the table and
the way it pleases her to no end when he likes the food we have chosen for
meals.
I told her today that this is the quality of boy becoming
man that she should base herself on one day for her future husband (in like 100
years!). She should never accept anything less than this quality of human
being. She needs to set her standards super high and live into those expectations.
This mere fourteen year old can be what she measures men against in the future.
She will remember him.
She will remember the way the his face lights up when he
talks about hoping to be selected to climb the mountain in Africa, or how as
profound his loss has been in the last couple of months that he still has a
smile for all of us. She will remember that when he speaks of his Dad it is
with honor and love and that he struggles to name him in the past tense. She will remember how even with
the worst thing ever happening to this child just two months ago….that he has
kept his strength and loveliness about him. She will remember the subtle but
still there cloud that has now had to touch his eyes.
This gentle soul with remain with us all for many years to
come.
And my daughter is taken with him in the sweetest of
ways.
And I sit back and soak it all in remembering how it felt
at her age to have my brother’s friends come in and out of our home and glance
my way. To have been made to feel important and sometimes even beautiful by the sweet ones who made an effort to pay attention to their buddies's younger sister.To begin to measure future men against not only my
brothers but by the boys they exposed me to.
I am glad that for Beauty, the standard has been set high by
three simple days.
That she will always from this point forward remember greatness
and want it for her one day. And not settle for anything less that what she saw
before her this weekend.
And to learn the lesson…from him that is…..that even when
you lose something the most precious to you…you can still go on…and still be who
you are at the core…with that person smiling down upon you.
Having brought you up so well in everyway that the man you will become stems from the way you were taught as a boy and from the hand that held yours since the very beginning.
