How big is your Brave?

I have been thinking a LOT about the word "brave" today.

It all started when a high school friend of mine posted a music video on Facebook today.



How brave are you?

How brave am I?

I seriously think I am brave enough to start dancing in the middle of somewhere just because.

Really. I think I might just do it one day.

Maybe for Fragile X Awareness I will do it.

Maybe one day I will be brave enough to have everyone stare at me because I don't seem "normal" and see if I can help make even one person aware of Fragile X Syndrome.

Am I that brave?

I hope I would be.

My kids are.

We were at a mountain park this last weekend letting the kids play in a shallow stream alongside other children while we were watching, smiling, and taking pictures in the shade.

Notice the Sean Connery James Bond towel... ya, we're cool like that.

Well, while we were there Brother had a brave moment. A lady and her daughter had been hanging around by him on a log bridge on the stream. The mother asked him if he would take their picture. He, of course, shrieked "no" and turned his head away and covered his eyes. She, an adult, said to him, "Well, you're a big meanie!"

...

I explained a little to her trying to keep my tongue in check and she continued to apologize with, "I'm so sorry, he just looks so normal."

...

Brother looked up at me and I just tousled his hair and said, "Ya, we all do, huh [Brother]?"

I think I was brave too, not to chew the lady out for being innocently stupid. I'm sure she didn't mean to be rude when she said he looks "normal."

Who decides what normal looks like anyway? I can tell you, it certainly wasn't the parents of special needs children...

So, I think Brother is pretty big on brave when it comes to facing it more and more as he gets older.

Sister, she faces brave straight in the eyes everyday she wakes up and stares and Autism and Fragile X both in the eyes and still plays with friends, laughs and has a sense of humor regardless of what her brain is trying to make her do.

That's big brave.

Baby is so brave that no matter how many times she is not understood by me, her dad, her siblings or anyone else, she will keep trying to communicate to you whether it takes pulling, crying, signing, and by dang, sometimes even talking!

For her, that's brave.

Marc and I, well, I have to say that there are some things we have faced the last while that I must say would qualify us as being in the BIG brave category.

Forgiveness, I must say, is one of the bravest things anyone can do here on this earth. It is heart wrenching. Especially when it has to do with your children. I can stay mad at people for doing hurtful things through mistakes, stupidity, or just flat out evil, but I can't teach my children love and kindness toward others if I don't feel it in my own heart.

Bravery comes from the heart.

Bravery is there because we are passionate enough about something that we are willing to die for it.

We love something enough to fight for it.

Not destroy ourselves over it. There is a big difference.

To be destroyed for a cause and to be brave for a cause are two different things.

I want to be brave.

I want to be able to forgive.

I want my children to see that I can forgive.

I want them to see that I have love in my heart.

I want my brave to be big enough for love to over come.

Go out and show how big your brave is!

Oh, and Happy 4th of July! My sidewalk chalk art had double meaning today!