Watching my kids grow up

This week I've had several experiences where I stopped and just looked at my two beautiful, bright, wonderful children and thought "I'm so lucky." They are turning out to be fantastic little people, who have empathy and sympathy, a hint of sass, humor, laughter, love, compassion, wit, generosity and all the other good things you can think of.
We went to Cathy's viewing and funeral on Tuesday. How sad to attend the funeral of a woman who was only 44 and who had her life ahead of her. Addie and Ben have never been to a funeral before, and have never seen an open casket. I thought it was important for them to be there to show love and support for Matthew and his dad, but also so they had an idea of what a ceremony like that is. Benjamin was hesitant to look at Cathy's body, but I held him and he did with no problem. As we were giving Cathy's parents our condolences, Ben interrupts by saying "we were in a car crash. Mommy passed out." and all I wanted to do was crawl into a hole because here is the woman who just lost her daughter and Ben is going on about our accident. Her mom was wonderful though, and concerned about us too.
As the ceremony went on, Addie took it all in. She read every single word of the Remembrance poem in the booklet about Cathy. She thought about every sentence and what it meant. She read every song she could find in the hymn book. She sang every word she could keep up with in the book. She knelt when everyone else did. She answered every response on cue with the rest of the church. She took in every aspect of what a funeral is and honored a tradition that she knew nothing about. At one point I looked over and she is belting out "Alleluia, Alleluia" like she has known the song forever. After the service, I had to get back to work for a patient, but Addie really wanted to go to the burial, so she went with Muddy and Guppy. Later that night she told me all about how everyone else had thrown their rose onto the center of Cathy's casket and how she purposely put hers on the edge, so that way she knew which one was hers. When I got home from work the first thing I said to her was, "how was the burial?" Her response was, "It was great. They picked a really good spot out for her, right by the forest. Since she liked the creek so much, it was the perfect place for her, because it's kind of like the creek." Really. That was my daughter's response. I love her so much.
Yesterday Benjamin spent the day with Aunt Wendy. Wendy told me that at one point Ben came into her clearly terrified and upset. As she was doing an overall assessment to make sure he wasn't bleeding or hurt, she asked him what was wrong. He said, "I was eating my cookie and a piece fell and she was too close and...she ate it" and he was visibly shaken by this. She, in this story, is Aunt Wendy's dog Lucy. The cookie had chocolate on it and we've all talked about how chocolate is dangerous for a dog. Wendy assured him it was ok, that Lucy would be ok, that he hadn't done anything wrong. That story just melted my heart. His concern for another being was so great in that moment, it surely gives him some passes at the times he hit someone or talks back, right?
There's a website I love called "1000awesomethings.com" The premise is that there are awesome things all around us, all of the time, and it's easy to get lost in what we're doing and not recognize them. Reading Neil's descriptions of things that are wonderfully-ordinary and mundane makes me smile every single day. Last night while reviewing some of his older posts, I came across one about "when your child reads you a bedtime story" and it just made me smile. Addie and Ben have been going to bed together very well recently and now I don't even have to read the stories. They each pick out a book and lay in bed as Addie reads them out loud. It's incredible to see and to hear. They love each other so much--it's awesome.
Brian's mom on Mother's Day remarked at breakfast that "Addie could probably order for herself." I assured her that both of them frequently order for themselves and that they don't really need us for much. Brian's dad said, "just to get them from place to place" and I jokingly said, 'and I can't always do that right." While they don't necessarily need us for everything anymore, it's an incredible gift to watch them find their ways in the world, to take in and process all that the world has to offer, and to know that them being here makes the world a better place. I am so lucky. (and now I'm crying... as I'm sure some of you are!)