We Made a Grown Man Cry
Happy Tears and Hope for the Future
By "we" I mean me and fifty of the greatest kids I know -- and it wasn't the first time. It's actually almost "common." Here's the back story.
We held a dance at a local park. To us, it was just a typical, normal, usual dance. We strung some lights, put up a few speakers, and invited the people. Fifty kids and a few parents showed up and the revelry began. They danced and sashayed and laughed and jumped and smiled and clapped and sang and cavorted, and formed kick lines and giggled and talked and carried on. Notice I didn't say anything about standing around in cliques or being on phones.
During all the merrymaking, somewhere in the background of the parking lot, in the dark, sat two little golf carts with observers from the town council that had given their approval for the event. During the last dance, my job as a caller having been completed, I walked over to the fence and motioned for them to come chat. One man left his golf cart and approached. I casually asked him what he thought of the shindig that evening. He began to reply then suddenly choked up. Through broken words, he described the beauty he had witnessed. As he shook his head in disbelief, the questions poured out. Was this a certain church? Youth group? School?
No. Just a bunch of good, mostly homeschooled (but not all) kids and parents celebrating life. "It's like it was when I was a kid. I'm an old man, and I didn't think this existed anymore." Thank you for noticing, Sir. You blessed my day and helped me see that what we are doing... matters.
I'm not crying. You're crying.
