On Family

Three blog posts in one week…don’t get used to it ladies and gents.  This one’s gonna be a quickie though, because I wanna take a minute to pimp out my mom.

I’ve talked about her blog a little bit, mostly in reference to how she was embarrassingly ahead of me in jumping on the social media bandwagon.  What I haven’t told you is that she is, among many other things, a great writer.  She’s not just good at one thing either…she can do humor (bonus: that post includes a picture of me), she can do mommy blogging, she can even do poetry.

She recently wrote a post about my little sister Jadie that set me to tears.  Which was a bit awkward since I actually read the post on my phone while I was out at a bar.  But I have plenty of experience reading blogs and crying inconspicuously at my desk so I was able to keep my tears on the down low.

This story acutely affected me because it was about my little Jadie Beth who I love with all of my heart.  So when my mom re-posted it as a note on fb my two aunts, cousin, and my sister all shared it on our walls.  I didn’t realize how far beyond my little sister the sentiment really went.  I got such great comments.

This is a beautiful and heartfelt declaration that your mom wrote. I can identify this with myself, as in the past I struggled with my weight everyday, and I can with the up most honesty say that when you are seen as “overweight,” you reall…y are invisible to a lot of people. I am sorry your little sister is going through this, but at the same time I’m very happy that your mom is addressing this issue and trying to see some change brought into the world about it. This really did bring tears to my eyes…I thank your mom for writing this.

I’m in! As a teacher myself, I try my hardest to make all students feel special. I think it starts with modeling what that looks like. So, for all of those adults out there excluding others for superficial reasons, there kids will do exactly that! Hopefully what your mom wrote will strike a few. Everything she wrote was dead on and it’s awful that innocent children are subjected to such exclusion. Maybe that one person can start a trend and eventually others will follow….hopefully!

Wow what a great story. I do believe in God and I believe his heart breaks ever time he sees this happen. And he wants to do something, and his vehicle for that something, is through us. We are his instruments of change. And your mom is right one person, one time is not enough, but each person every time would make a great change. Thank your mom for sharing this story.

And that was just on my post.  There were many many more on the other re-postings.  I really didn’t expect it to elicit that response.  I mean I thought it was great, but I post stuff all the time about bullying or equality or whatever and it usually only gets a few likes from the same handful of people.  So I was surprised and happy to see the comments.

Then, to my mom’s shock and excitement, The Bloggess, who probably doesn’t even need a link because she’s so blog-famous, read the story and linked to it on her twitter.  All of the sudden the post is blowing up.  There’s 45 comments!  She told me she’s even getting hits from StumbleUpon!  I’m so freaking happy for her.  Partially because I know she’s always wanted to grow her blog audience and this has given her an avenue into that possibility.  But mostly because the whole reason she wrote the post was to put a face and a name to the feeling of invisibility that so many children out there struggle with.  So here you are.  This is the post, called Little Sally Walker.  This is the face, and her name is Jadyn Elizabeth and she’s sweet and creative and beautiful.