Hero

I'd like to share a story about a hero in the making.

It starts back on Monday morning - December 17th - when Grandma was driving the twins to school. On the way, they noticed a flag pole where the flag was flying half way down. Then they started asking questions. Why was the flag like that? Grandma answered a few of them, but then she told the boys that any other questions needed to go to Mommy and Daddy. She texted to warn me about their upcoming interrogation.

Now, it's important to mention that at the time the Connecticut school tragedy took place, I was thinking we would share some of the events with the older boys so they could participate in our specific prayers. But once the shock and tears lessened as the weekend went on, and after I spent some time with my sweet, little kindergartners, I decided that there was no good reason to fill them in. No reason to share horrific real events that would create fear and possibly nightmares. No reason to spoil even more of their innocence. The first time I broke down sobbing with the news was when I heard they were small kids - the age of my own. That made it even more piercing. I could empathize with the parents like no other tragedy.

Now, we are pretty open about some stuff: like bad guys, what happens to them and why. We speak about what Daddy does. An early understanding of good and bad consequences, even outside the home and for grown ups, is healthy. But it's not like we took them to the Philippines and explained about sex trafficking - a large part of the country's problems. Some things can still be communicated effectively with vagueness according to their age. But anyway, we decided not to say anything. But then they saw the flag.

I wasn't going to bring it up, so I just waited for them to. It finally happened at Winco - another half mast flag. But I thought I could get away with saying nothing. I honestly wasn't ready since I hadn't talked to Scott yet. But there in the parking lot, I was almost moved to tears with a comment from Noah. The twins were going back and forth about the flag being down again. "Grandma said that the flag is down because there was a war where some kids got killed. And it's really sad." (No, that wasn't her exact explanation, but that's somehow what they took away.) I just agreed at the tail end that it was very sad. Then Noah said, "Mom, when I grow up, I'm going to stop that before it happens." I know it doesn't sound very convincing, but if you could see his determined eyes staring into the distance in the direction of the flag, you'd believe him too. We will do our best to teach you to be brave and stand up for the oppressed, Noah. I bent down and kisses his forehead. Even if that is a desire of his at this age, I am so extremely proud!!

If you are wondering if they ever really asked for an explanation, yes, that just happened. They had already heard from Grandma that some kids were killed, but I focused on the half mast flag - that's really what they were asking about. So I said, "Sometimes the President asks us to lower our flags to show honor and respect for different people. Last week some kids were killed so we are showing them honor. It could be for heroes, or when our country is really sad. We also do it on Veterans Day and Memorial Day and some other days too." They asked a great follow up question. "Mom, do they fly the flag at half mast when every Marine dies?"

I have thoughts on that too, so I'm going to save that for another post.