It's What Makes You Special

My daughter is very big for her age.  People are always amazed when they hear she's only six.

"Wow!  She's really tall!" they always say.  "You must have really tall people in your family."

We don't.  My beloved is six feet and his dad was a little shorter than that.  I'm Italian, so I tend to run on the short side.  We're not giants by any means so when people ask me where my daughter gets her height from I usually just shrug and say,

"Yeah, I don't know, but boy I wish I had her long legs," and then we laugh about it.

The truth is, there is a reason for her height.  It's medical.  It's something we're handling with doctors.  It's private, and it's never been anything that's bothered her.

This morning, she came into the kitchen and said,

"Mom, when I stand in line with my class the big kids stare at me."

"Oh, because you're so pretty?"

"No," she said quickly, seeing right through my casual quip.  "And they whisper about me."

"What do they say?"

"They say I'm too big to be a kindergartener.  They say that I should be in a grade and not with little kids."

What kid doesn't wish they were bigger?  What kid wouldn't think it was cool if other people thought they were older?

What kid wants to feel like something about them isn't right?

It was the first time I'd ever seen her visibly distressed by her size.  It's always been a non-issue as far as she's been concerned.  She's just big.  That's who she is.

And in that moment, with her vulnerability breaking wide open all over my kitchen floor, I didn't know what to say.  My mind desperately raced for something more meaningful than a comment on her beauty or the superficial reassurance that the others are just jealous, but I came up empty.  I had nothing.

Without missing a beat or taking a pause, my son walked over, put his hand on her shoulder, looked right into her eyes and said,

"But that's what makes you so special.  Because you're so much bigger than the other kids."

"It is?" she replied.

"Yeah.  You're bigger than any other kindergartener.  You're bigger than I was when I was in kindergarten.  You're big enough to be in fourth grade, like me.  It's why you're special."

He smiled at her as she took that in.  I stood there, silent.  There was nothing I could possibly add to that, and so I turned away and wiped the tears from my eyes.

Tears because of my failings.  Tears because of his nobility.  Tears because of the gratitude I have for the beauty they see inside of each other.