Day 22

My daughter Rhys prays every night before she goes to bed with whoever puts her down.  Her prayers sound like this: "Dear Jesus, thank you for__________"(she proceeds to mention everyone she saw that day) then ends the prayer with:"Thank you for mommy and daddy for taking care of me. And please heal my daddy's owee, in Jesus name, AMEN."

Yesterday, I told her that I was going to the hospital to get some medicine for my owee.  About half an hour after I left, June called as I was in the waiting room.  She said that Rhys started crying hysterically and clung for dear life to her and would not let go.  When June asked her what was wrong, the only thing she could blurt out was, DADDY, in between sobs.  So June asked her what she wanted to do.  She said she wanted to pray for daddy, so they did and she stopped crying.  I am beginning to realize that kids soak up a lot more than we realize.  I tell her something once and it gets ingrained.

Today, we asked her to pray for daddy's owee and she said this:  "Dear Jesus, thank you for Daddy's owee. Amen."  At first I thought, well that isn't right.  Not thank you, haha, wrong use of the past participle adjective noun thing.  But then I thought more about it.  What have we told her?  She knows her daddy is sick.  She knows that her daddy is going to get better.  She wakes up and sees me everyday.  We get to play together and nap together (nap is mostly for me now).  I am home when she comes home with June from play dates, classes and shopping.  Maybe she is thankful for all the time I get to spend with her now--  times that I may have missed in the first 2 and half years due to work or life.

Christian Bale in his Oscar acceptance speech thanked his daughter for teaching him more than he could ever teach her.  I feel the same way.  My daughter just taught me how to be thankful for getting cancer.  Crazy.

And now to showcase the latest headgear courtesy of my buddy Steve Rowe and his ever increasing knitting skills:

In case you can't read it, it says:  GIL STRONG