This past week we went to see the
Houston Astros play the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Our youngest daughter, Zhenya, doesn’t know anything about baseball. She didn’t care that the Astros have firmly established their position in last
place of their conference by winning only a third of their games, and even if
they win every game for the rest of the season, they will still have a losing
record. Nor did she care that the Pirates, although better than the Astros, were also only playing for pride. She didn’t seem to care that the amazing
Minute Maid Stadium was only about a third of capacity. She wasn’t impressed by
the full size locomotive or the retractable roof. She was just happy to be at a
baseball game, calling it “the best night ever!”
Around the 5th inning I noticed some veterans sitting in the handicapped
section. They were there with helpingahero.org,
an organization that builds specially equipped houses for injured vets. As a
vet myself I wanted the kids to meet some people who are heroes, as well as get
them past the shock of meeting someone who was missing a limb or had been
severely burned. Maybe it sounds a little callous, but I imagine that is what I
would want if I were missing an arm or leg.
I took Zhenya by the hand and
walked her over to their seating area. She played shy at first, but was soon
deeply engaged with them and their stories. Three young men in particular
captured her attention. The first is a Marine who was missing an arm and both
legs. She whispered to me “What happened to his arm?” looking at his prosthetic
arm which ended in the classic hook design. I asked him if it was OK for her to
ask. He replied “Of course” and engaged her with a huge smile. His wife also
directed her attention to the little seven-year old that was standing by them. Zhenya
asked and he replied “My arm was broken so badly that they had to take it off.”
Zhenya, in her open and
unpretentious manner, asked the next question, “How did it get broken?”
“um…” he hesitated, not quite sure
how to explain how an IED had blown up his Humvee while he was on patrol trying
to kill Al-Queda soldiers in the heart of Afghanistan. “A bomb blew up the car
I was riding in” he tried.
“OK” Zhenya replied. He looked at
me, unsure if his response was appropriate. I smiled to reassure them,
explaining how Zhenya takes everything at face value.
Zhenya then spied the two soldiers
sitting across the way. They were both in wheelchairs, one a double amputee
with a severely injured arm in a bandage, the other a triple amputee with only
short stumps where his arm and legs used to be. We walked over and introduced
ourselves. Zhenya, with her usual lack of reservation, asked them what happened.
They also hesitated at the thought of explaining a land mine to a seven year
old girl. “I stepped on a bad thing the boogey-man hid under the ground” one
tried. Zhen looked puzzled and then he looked puzzled.
I interceded with “The bad guys put
bombs under the ground and he accidentally stepped on one of them.” All of the
puzzled looks went away as understanding took over. They found a child with
whom they could talk to without being afraid of freaking her out, and she found
some adults that engaged her and talked with her without fear. They showed her
their stumps, scars, and tattoos. She told them about her dogs and her dream of
getting a horse. They shared about their wives and their children. She shared
about her brothers and sisters and her dad who used to be a sailor. At one
point I looked down at Zhenya and found her sharing peanuts with one of the
sponsors, all the while deeply engaged in her conversations with these men.
When I felt it was time for us to
go, I told her to tell them “thank you” and “goodbye”. One of the soldiers gave
her his ball cap. It was an Astros hat that had been autographed by several of
the players before the game. “I really don’t like the Astros that much, would
you like to have it?”
She reached out for it and took it
gently in her hands. I looked down to see her eyes filled with tears. She tried
to rub them away before anyone else noticed. I whispered to her, “Maybe you can
trade him something for it.”
She took one of the ever present
silly bands off of her wrist and presented it to him. He held out his hand, and
she slipped it onto his wrist. “Be very careful with it,” she warned, “they
break very easy.” She slipped the oversized hat onto her head and beamed.
These men, battle hardened and
bloodied, had seen the worst of what the world has to offer, had engaged my little
adopted Kazakh daughter and impressed her, not an easy task. Zhenya, through
her unpretentious and unassuming nature, had managed to capture the attention
of two soldiers by slipping past their outer defenses which were embodied by
their injuries, and captured their hearts. Are there lessons to be pulled from
this story? Absolutely, but I will leave that to you.
When I looked up at the scoreboard,
the Astros had scored 5 runs to take a 6-3 lead. We hadn’t noticed.
“Whoever humbles himself like this
child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.” Matt 18:4 ESV
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