Being Special

 

"Cultivating a close, warmhearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease." Dalai Lama

I wonder if other people are as sick of reading about Paris Hilton as I am? Maybe I'm just getting cynical but I am highly suspicious of people who after screwing up big time are all of a sudden talking about God. It all smacks too much of publicity and her needing to change her image. If she were really serious she would be apologizing for the racial and homophobic slurs that are circulating around the net from a tape of her mouthing off. People who really want to change their lives do it they don't talk about it.

It was so refreshing to read another interview with a little blond girl named Bindi Irwin at http://television.aol.com/tv-celebrity-interviews/bindi-terri-irwin. Bindi is the daughter of the late Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin and she has inherited his passion for conservation and love of all living things. It is hard to believe that she is only eight years old. She is such a poised and mature young lady with a wisdom way beyond her years. She openly talks about her love for her Mom and Dad and baby brother Bob. She talks of her love of animals and her love of performing. She wants to carry on her Dad's work and she is making a wonderful start. A lot of adults could learn a great deal about life from this little girl.

I have a special affinity for young people. It may be because I've always been a kid at heart. We have a young man on the newsgroup who always makes a point of telling me how much he loves my art work. His enthusiasm for a show that his grandfather watched and he himself watched just recently with his Dad is so fun to see. He is also an artist and seems to be such a sweet kid. You can learn a love of life from young people like that.

I have always had a special relationship with my middle godson who suffers from Aspergers. He is a very brilliant child and watching him learn how to cope with Aspergers and the world has really been a life lesson. He is very strongly into things that are Celtic and into fantasy. He loves my stories and can quote back my own dialog to me that I don't remember well enough to quote. He understands the more serious elements that are in the stories and the philosophy and psychology behind the actions of some of my characters. It isn't something you really expect an 11 year old to understand but we can have some wonderful conversations about life as perceived through the fantasy universe I write about.

I worked a lot with young people when I was doing conventions. I often ran the gopher squads and had dozens of young people calling me Mom. We stayed in touch in between conventions and I very much was a mother for some of them. They would turn to me when they had problems and together we would work the problems out. It was always so rewarding to watch these youngsters turn into responsible adults who never lost the ability to be a child at heart.

So for all our young people you are very special to me. We need to treasure our youth and help them grow into good adults who still remain young at heart.

The picture is in honor of little Bindi Irwin and is called All Creatures Great and Small.

The real counter is 5413.