A little girl tries to teach some older kids the meaning of loving others after witnessing them picking on her little handicapped cousin.
The child sits there on the steps, regarding the scene before her. She sees a group of kids, older, perhaps teenagers or preteens, picking on a little kid no older than kindergarten-age.
The kid getting picked on is a little girl, a little girl like herself, but younger. The girl is disabled somehow; she walks on two crutches, wears braces on her legs. The child is crying as the kids doing the teasing take her crutches away, so that the child stumbles, falls to the ground. The older kids laugh all the harder, meanwhile, kicking at her.
Rage, pent-up rage, builds up inside the child as she witnesses the awful scene in front of her. For she knows the child who is getting picked on. It is none other than her cousin, Rose, who has spina bifida and can't walk without help. She was born this way, born with her lower half paralyzed. It's how she's always been.
When she decides that she can't take it any longer, the little girl runs full-tilt into the group of kids, yelling and screaming like a crazed maniac. She roughly pushes the kids away from her cousin, tells them to stop picking on the younger child, then helps the littler girl up to her feet, dries her tears away with the edge of her bright-red sweater. She then leads the little girl inside, where she tells her mother that some older kids were being mean to her.
Rose is dirty, has scraped up knees, hands, face. Her clothes are torn, covered with dirt and grime. Her hair is askew, and tears streak her small face. The sight of her is enough to break anyone's heart.
The girl's mother sighs heavily as she tends to little Rosie's injuries. Meanwhile, the woman's daughter continues to seethe in a blind fit of rage. "Just you wait, Mother", she tells her mom, "I'm gonna' beat the poop outta' those mean kids who did this to Rose. Just because she's disabled doesn't mean she should get treated like that!"
"I know, but there are mean people in this world who haven't been taught how to act around people like Rosie", the girl's mother explains to her daughter. "This is why it is imperitive that we teach them, so they will know how to act the next time they see her."
"Yeah, but the thing what makes me the maddest is that some of the kids' parents were laughing. I heard them, Mother!" the little girl whines plaintively. "I even saw them! I mean, how can some people be so stupid?"
"Honey, I don't know, but the world has gotten to be an ugly place. This is why I want you to be nice, show the world that there are still nice people around, if you know where to find them. You can be that one to teach the world how it is to love, then act on that love, show those who need it the most that you care," the mother reassures her daughter with a hug and a kiss.
"Is that one reason why we go to church on Sunday? To teach others to be like Jesus? Jesus loved people", the child said.
"That's exactly why. You have Jesus in your heart; now it is your turn to show people that love, and to teach them to be like Jesus", Mother says. "People may still act mean, but maybe once they see your love in action, maybe they will learn to stop being bad and actually start doing some good".
The little girl understands. She then goes back outside to start on her mission of peace, to try to learn to forgive the big kids for picking on her cousin, to teach them about love and what they were doing to her cousin was wrong.
Oh Karen, this hits home and the heart, kids can be cruel yet the most innocent, if all parents would teach them to fogive and love what a wonderful world this would be. Thank you so much for sharing.
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Meet these enchanting ponies and their friends. What do they like to do best? They love chatting with young riders and helping build their confidence.
