the time for love is now (from a song by Michael Stipe)

One day recently, I was taking the dog for a walk, when I passed a house with a man sawing wood in the front yard. I paused, wondered what he was making, and continued on my walk. 

Then, on Halloween, my husband and I were sitting at a table outside, passing out candy, when we heard a bit of a commotion down the street. As the flashing lights and swirling sirens got closer, we saw the most eye-catching costume of the night; a beautifully made, cherry red firetruck surrounded by adults and kids dressed as firefighters. 

My eyes were immediately drawn to the handsome little boy in the driver’s seat. I caught the glimmer of his smile and flash of his stylish, spikey hair and realized it was a boy from my daughter’s grade. He’s in a wheelchair and one day at the beginning of the year, we met him and his dad on the way to school. 

I went up to the truck and said hello. I met his mom and a friend who told me that his father had made this incredibly elaborate and amazing costume. I thought back to the man sawing wood in what presumably was his front yard. My cheeks and eyes tingled with the tickle of tears.

They told me that he makes a costume by hand every year for his son. Last year, it was a bat mobile. 

The time, effort, and dedication that go into creating these costumes awakened something in me. 

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how as much as we are alike, we are also different. We come from different places, with unique families and perspectives. We have different personalities and sensitivities. We possess different tools. Different abilities. Different strengths and weaknesses. Different is normal. Different is to be expected, accepted, and embraced.

We are so much more than our limitations.

And we are creative beyond our wildest dreams. We are capable of making beauty with our hands, hearts, and minds. 

We may not fit into a certain box but we can make our own.

Maybe it’s not about changing or fixing, maybe it’s about accepting and loving each other and our own unique being exactly as we were made, exactly as we are.