Awakening

One of the deep honors of being a parent is the opportunity to be present when another human being reaches a new understanding of the world. Sometimes these moments are cotton candy sweet, happy affairs. Sometimes they're not. In either case the blessing witnessing - or perhaps even occasionally midwifing - these moments remains the same.

The other evening one of these moments happened for my youngest, and all I could do was just wrap my arms around him and let him mourn.

See, we have a two diet family. My eldest so and I are vegan, my husband and younger two have not been. We coexist, and Warren and I very frank about where food comes from. Both of us believe its important to really understand the origins of what's on our plate. It's so easy in our society to divorce ourselves from this knowledge, and both the meat-eating husband and I believe that's an ethical slippery-slope. (I'm giving my other half a hard time, but he honestly doesn't eat a lot of animal products anymore, which I appreciate.)

So the other night my little guy didn't understand what the optional meat for his bean burrito was all about. When I finally got through to him that it was ground up cow meat that my husband had cooked to add to his, and not vegan he was absolutely horrified. He finally understood, and he was absolutely wracked with grief for all butchered animals. Watching him extend his new knowledge into a growing sense of compassion was so wonderful. Holding him while he cried for them in empathy was painful, but beautiful, too. I'm grateful I was allowed to be there.