comfort you

The way they were sitting there, so close to one another, her teeny head up level with his own, I couldn't help but laugh out loud. "They're twins," I thought "she and him, born six years apart!" No wonder his fuse is longer, so much longer when he deals with her than with anyone else. But it's not always kisses and smiles around here between siblings who know exactly how to nit and pick their way into squabbles that seem to bleed from one into the next from sunrise to sundown, oh mercy. "Separate!" I call out to boys red with fury, to girls screeching frenziedly over small dolls and their small clothes and their even smaller accessories. "Please," I beg, "Please, children, be good to each other."

The other day, Elijah, when Benjamin was cowering in the corner at the library because a clown, a rather scraggly looking, raspy voiced clown, showed up for "Circus Day" in the kid's department, when he wept with fear until I led him out the door to the safety of the parking lot, I saw you wrap your arm around his shoulder. And you, Priscilla, you reprimanded me, harshly, when Mary fell backwards off her chair. "Mama!" You screamed in panic, "Why didn't you catch her?!"

I've witnessed it, my loves, your fierce loyalty to family when one of us is hurt, embarrassed, disappointed. "Remember," I am begging you, "Remember, children, always, that pouring comfort onto wounds (his, hers, ours, theirs) speeds growth and healing.