all the hearts

Just 30 days since my last post, summer vacation finally begins tomorrow. I am so worn out and equally ecstatic not to have to juggle work with my little one, and that we have 3 months to hang out together. 

 

I am so disturbed by the back-to-back mass shootings in Buffalo and Texas. This anecdote from one of my favorite children's book authors articulates it so well for both children and yes, even those politicians (50 senators) who refuse to budge on any legislation.

I was down at the lake a few days ago, standing and admiring a gaggle of goslings, when a woman came and stood beside me.

“Aren’t they beautiful?” she said.

“They are,” I said. “I can’t quite get over the perfection of them.”

We stood there, marveling together while an adult goose watched us in return.

The woman said, “You wrote The Tale of Despereaux, didn’t you?”

“I did!” I said, turning to her.

“My son loved that book when he was small. He used to go around shouting, ‘Do you think rats do not have hearts? Wrong!’”

“Wow,” I said. “I don’t even remember that line.”

“He’s grown up now,” said the woman. “An engineer. A lovely human being.”

“Tell him I said ‘hello,” I said.

“I will,” said the woman.

When I got back home, I pulled a copy of Despereaux off the shelf and flipped through it, looking for the line about rats and hearts.

It took me awhile, but I found it:

“Did you think that rats do not have hearts? Wrong. All living things have a heart. And the heart of any living thing can be broken.”

I read those lines and thought about the goslings and the goose parent and the woman and her young son who is now grown and oh, all of it.

All the world, all the living things, all the hearts.

via {Kate diCamillo}