It is a tradition in the Coyle house that every Christmas we draw names out of a hat and whomever we draw we have to hand craft a present for said person. This year fate gave me my brother D's name and i was in for a little bit of a challenge. I started wracking my brain for ideas- he likes to fish, he loves science, he loves his guitar...hmm what should i do? until...ding ding ding! i got an idea. My idea was to make him a tackle box and not juts any old nasty tackle box, a Minnesota Gopher's colored one. He would love it.
So, with the idea fresh in my head and the motivation of, well, a senior about to graduate, i had to look for some outside help. I went to my dad, the handy man of course, and he immediately started sketching out ideas and jabbering my ear off about how we could do this and that if we got a whatcha-mah-call-it or a doodad of some sort. 99% of it went over my head. Let's just say I never watched Bob The Builder. So, after we got the plan set and I was all excited, fate stepped in...again. I got sick and it completely wiped me out. There was no chance that this tackle box was going to be made anytime soon simply because I could barely lift my head off my pillow. Therefore, it got put on hold.
Saturday came around (today) and I was finally feeling a little better so I told my dad I was up to go to Home Depot to get our supplies for our task at hand. We get there and everything is going as planned; we find the boards we need, the screws, the paint and.... a toilet paper roller? Idk my dad is weird but he added it to the cart.
This moment, at the checkout counter, is the reason i wrote this. As we were scanning our items (a self check out machine don't ya know) there was a family walking through the isles behind us. At first glance they looked like the cutest new family- a relatively attractive dad, a pretty, well-dressed mom and the cutest 6 year old dressed in her snow stuff with little pig tails. I passed my eyes over them like I would do to any other person until i saw the mom shove the little girl. My eyes darted back and i couldn't break the stare. I was in awe at what I saw (pardon the rhyme.) At second glance, i saw hate in the parents eyes and hurt and emptiness in the little girl's. If one shove wasn't enough, this little girl got a double dosage but this time by her dad; she went into the isle wall. What was she doing wrong? walking to slow? walking the wrong way? looking at the wrong thing? WHAT WAS SHE DOING WRONG? nothing. I had to turn away to keep myself from crying. No little kid deserves that. All i wanted to do was run up to those parents and whack them with the 2x4 my dad and I had just bought and then poke their eyes out with the screws and then steal away that little girl and bring her to a place that she would be safe forever. I was filled with hate towards those parents, a hate that made my insides hot.
It made me think about the upcoming holidays. We are all so joyous and happy during this season that we forget to think about those kids that don't get to run down the stairs to the magic that Santa brings on Christmas morning, instead they run down the stairs so they don't get beat by their parents. It breaks my heart right in two. Pray for these kids on christmas morning because every kid deserves to wake up with a smile on christmas morning and have hope and joy in their hearts.
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