And the lessons keep coming.

Lessons sometimes come when I am not really ready...like when I am driving. Lessons I teach and am taught.

1) Tonight Kath told me that she doesn't get the ball during scooter ball as much as everyone else. She said her scooter was too slow. Then she said her pants were too long. For a second I seriously considered letting her think those were the reasons. Then I thought about how today my students and I talked about student athletes who are admitted into colleges when they can't even read above a 4th grade reading level, how we really aren't doing them any favors, but setting them up for failures. So I had to say, "Kath, it's not that your scooter is slow or your pants are too long. Your body works so hard to just do what it does do that riding a scooter on top of all that is that much harder. You may never be fast at riding a scooter but you are good at other things." She answered, "Like what?" I asked her what she thought she was good at. She hardly paused before she started to list, "Hopscotch, skipping, dancing...and on and on." I told her she was also one of the best huggers I knew (she made sure she hugged my writing group to near asphyxiation tonight after that) and that she is always concerned about her friends. And then it was ok. Even though I had that sour taste in my stomach that comes when I have to make something understandable to her that I think is so unfair.

2) She talked about how she read in a book that the stars are always out, out in space, they don't go to sleep when the sun is up and that some people don't know that.

3) After my writing group meeting I asked her if she had a good time joining me and she said, "Yes, but I didn't get to do my writing." (we spent the whole meeting talking)

4) On our way home Kath pointed to the stars and told me that stars are really angels of the people in heaven looking down on us, watching over us...she saw it in a movie (It's A Wonderful Life.) She knows my mom is in heaven and our sitter's mom died last week, so this is something she is trying make sense of.

So I made her face the deal about 'slow' scooters, but she seems to know and believe in space and angels...and that seems okay. As long as she knows science is real I have no problem with angels and the comfort they bring. I believe in them too. I seem surrounded some days by them esp when I am struggling to get through a day of making sense where none can be found. Strokes suck, but their survivors are pretty awesome.