Day 46 - Through a child's eyes

I have one of the neatest 7 year olds around. She is also very gifted with the written word. I know she is having a hard time processing this deployment and a lot of the times she can not express her feelings to me. She is the type of child that will say "nothing" every time you ask what's wrong. Quite like her Daddy. I do NOT like the word nothing! But she is able to write her feelings down. I love that. She also gives me permission to read some of her writings. If I spent 24 hours of every day reading I still would not be able to cover all of her material. We actually had to start telling her no to more notebooks and journals because her room has been taken over! Every gift occasion when we ask what she wants it is always something to write with and on. Spiral notebook is always at the top of every list. It makes for an easy shop! She has been this way as far back as M2 and I can remember.

I asked her permission to share a few of the things she has written so that she could help people see deployment through her eyes. She agreed.

Here is a poem she wrote at the beginning of the deployment.

"My Daddy has had to go far away,

He'll come home some other day.

One day someone will say,

Your DAD has come home today"

(Pretty sure she heard a similar first line on a Shirley Temple movie but I can't be sure.)

Here is a little excerpt from an answer to the question, "When my Daddy is away I worry about ..."

"Are you mad at me? Are you sad at me? But what I say every day is: is he going to die? Am I ever going to see him again? Is he dead already? I hope I get to see you again and I hope you don't die. But I KNOW God is not going to let you die."

And lastly, she was sitting, sneaking rather, in her hallway without me knowing. She unfortunately overheard some phone calls I had to make a few days ago and knew that a soldier had passed on. I had no idea until the next morning when she brought me this to read.

"When a Soldier dies, it's like kids. It's like a bully is hurting a lot of other kids and you kick him in the back and everybody cheers. Then the bully turns around and really hurts you. And you don't go to school for 10 weeks. Those kids will remember you and honor you. They will fight back for you and soon the bully will stop and leave everyone alone. It's the same thing as a soldier fighting for his family, people and nation."

I read that last one there to M2. At first I had a hard time understanding it. M2 understood her right away. They are so much a like. I have often said if what makes E so quirky is this thing called Aspergers than M2 just missed being diagnosed because she is a carbon copy of him.

Just like blogging has helped me let go of stress, I believe being able to express herself on paper has allowed her to cope well. I am so grateful for that!