At the library

[BarbaraGordon]

It should come as no surprise that I love libraries. Well, the kids have been out of school all week due to the ice storm, and getting boreder by the day, so today we headed to the public library in a neighboring suburb.

Now, I should note that I really really didn't want to take the younger one along. For one thing, it never seems to go well at the library, as the kids all stare and the Gap moms recoil in disgust if their kids get too close to him. Plus, with all the snow and ice on the ground, I wasn't sure I could get the wheelchair through the parking lot. Plus Charlie eats books.

But Jeff (big brother) really wanted Charlie to come along, so I packed him up and hoped for the best.

Well, it turned out to be a very multicultural affair, which in Oklahoma is a fairly rare sort of occurrence. There were a pair of Korean kids, a black girl, a Hispanic family, and Jeff and Charlie.

Anyway, the kids set out to build a train track together with those wooden Thomas the Train pieces. The Korean girl and the black girl were trying very hard to flirt with Jeff, both competing for his attention. Jeff, of course, being 9, was totally freaked out and had no clue what to do. He was trying to pretend like he wasn't enjoying it.

These kids were too busy engaging in third-grade social interaction while ostensibly building a train track to pay much attention to Charlie and his wheelchair, which frankly was a relief to me.

But the Korean mom wanted very much to discuss Charlie. Except she's not very proficient in English. So she can barely converse about day-to-day topics, let alone about chromosomal abnormalities and handicapped kids. But she kept pointing to Charlie and saying "my brother the same."

Also, she kept motioning that she really thought Charlie should be out of his wheelchair. Now, I didn't want to do this, because he can be quite the menace and I knew he would take all the toys and annoy the other kids, who were playing happily.

But she seemed insistent, and since she was kindhearted enough to actually show some interest in Charlie, I relented and let him out so he could play. He started alternating between scooting around trying to chase the other kids (frankly, I think he was trying to flirt, too), and laughing hysterically until he would run out of breath and fall over. He was having a great time.

Well, I turned around to go get some of Charlie's toys out of the backpack, and when I turned back to face Charlie, I suddenly realized why the woman had been so insistent about letting him out of the wheelchair...

...This woman -- total stranger -- is now sitting on the floor cross-legged, and has scooped Charlie up into her lap. She can barely maintain control over him (he's seven and huge and flailing around and giggling maniacally), but she's got him curled up in her arms, she's got her eyes closed, she's rocking him back and forth, she's speaking softly in Korean, and she's clearly praying over him.

I have rarely seen anyone pray so fervently.

Normally I would kind of freak out at a total stranger picking up my kid. But on the other hand I thought it was very brave of her. Most people won't go anywhere near Charlie.

After she finished praying she checked to make sure we attend church (she invited us to First Korean Baptist), and then she said she and the kids had to go, and she said, "God bwess you all."

I thought it was very sweet. I had been exhausted from the sickness and from the kids being out of school and everything, and her kindness to Charlie was a very nice (and unexpected) pick-me-up.