The Pressure that is her 1st Birthday Party

Sooo the Party didn't go as planned (as things that are planned rarely do), the Iguana Stew didn't show up and the Birthday Cake was MIA. But us Lenox's are known to pull something from nothing, and two hours later we had enough rice, chicken, and fruit to feed the whole community.

And interestingly enough, we actually did feed the whole community.

Not a single adult that I invited showed up.

Instead the people that came out to celebrate Danika's life with us were the Spanish street kids that I so often times wished in my head would just leave us alone.

They would come around every day asking to hold Danika and follow us around so close they would actually step on my heels. They would wait for my car to come around the corner after work everyday and chase it yelling , "Do-nika, Do-nika!!!" Their lives began and ended with their friend "Do-Nika". And Ms. Do-Nika loved them right back. Not sure if it was the actual kids' she loved, or the fact that she was ALWAYS the center of attention with them, but laughter knows no language, and friendship knows no culture, and theirs was a beautiful one.
Often times before they left they would ask for a simple drink of water from our water jug, and it would painfully remind me that clean water is a luxury item promised to no one down here.
There were times that I would look at their dirty clothes that had been worn for weeks in a row, and their dirty faces and hands, and make an excuse why they couldn't hold Danika. As if her clean clothes were too important for their dirty hands.

A pang of guilt washes over me as I watch them laughing and blowing bubbles at her Birthday in the very best dresses they could find. Clean face, clean hands, clean clothes. I think of them staying up all night scrubbing their church dresses until they were spotless, and my heart loves them so much more than I can even handle.

I pass out purple yarn for everyone to wear on their wrists as a symbol of love and support for Danika. They move their arms very carefully as to not break the yarn bracelet, and I know that months and months from now they will still faithfully be wearing her friendship bracelet.

They write on her posterboard words of love and friendship, and I know that they mean every single word.

They are honest. They are sincere. They are grateful. They are more perfect than any adult I have met thus far.

I watch my mom bring out more rice and chicken as the kids eagerly wait their turn to fill their plates. She tries to converse with them in the best way she knows how, hand gestures. I tell her that they don't understand her when she speaks English to them, but she tries anyhow. I can see her struggle with the language barrier, but her smiles and kind words don't need translation, they are understood perfectly.

Life works out perfectly, it always does. And there was no better way to spend my daughter's 1st Birthday.

Thank you God for this life that you have blessed me with.