Saturday, February 4, 2012

Chippy spends the night


One day this week when Daryl was at Daniel's house, Daniel brought his chipmunk to Daryl and said, "You can take my chipmunk home with you.  You can sleep with him and bring him back tomorrow."

To understand exactly how generous Daniel was being, you would need to know how much he loves his chipmunk.  And his gecko and his puppy dog and his lizard and Minnie's bear.  These stuffed animals are very real to him.  They get prime seating to watch TV when he is at our house and we make sure they get something good to eat.  Daniel loves all animals.  He is the one who will find a dead cricket in the basement and need a container to put it in so he can take it home.

So, when he offered for the chipmunk to spend the night with us, and away from Daniel, we felt honored.

I called him to thank him for being so kind.

Me:  Daniel, thank you so much for letting your chipmunk come spend the night with us.
Daniel:  Ohhhh, yeah.
Me:  We will take good care of him.  What is his name.
Daniel:  Chippy
Me:  Kitty?  You have a chipmunk named Kitty?
Sarah: (overhearing the conversation and translating the things I don't understand)  He said his name is Chippy.
Me:  Oh, his name is Chippy?
Daniel:  Right.  Chippy is his name in the Bible.

Which only makes sense when you know that in Daniel's family everyone, except Bella, has their name in the Bible.  Sarah, David, Jonathan, and Daniel.  And, now Chippy.

We found out later that the reason Daniel was thinking about sharing something he loved was because Jonathan had let one of his best friends, Joe Kitty, spend some time with Daniel a few days earlier.  

And that is a real lesson to me.  When we are kind and generous and loving, those things get passed around and they grow and multiply into something we never thought about.  It can all begin with something as small as letting someone else love Joe Kitty for a while.

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