He doesn't know any better...or does he? by Jamie Lightner

“Oh how hard to have to watch your baby go through this.”  I heard someone say to Jess the other day. 

As I pondered those words I thought to myself, yes, no mother ever wants any harm to come to her child, but when I thought of Zayne, I couldn’t help but think, how intriguing it is that he handles it so much better than I would.  He is so resilient.  He is too young to get caught up in the battle of the mind.  Rather he simply continues to fight the only real battle that exists…the tumor.  He takes each day as it comes.  He is too young to get caught up in questioning the future.  The only thing on his mind is, “mom can I have a popcicle.”  He doesn’t lie awake at night lost in the What if’s?  What if the tumor grows, what if he loses his sight, what if we can’t find something to work?  What if there is pain ahead?  He is too young to be aware of the harsh realities we face in this world.  One would say he is too young to know better.  But there are times I wish I didn’t know better.   ‘Cause Zayne sure seems better for it.

 I have read on many occasion about childlike faith, and how if we could only think like a child, and it has always made sense.  Children dream without limitations.  When they make mistakes they don’t carry them with them for the rest of their life, or even the rest of the day!  They see good in everything, even a rainy day.  But as I watch Zayne, the “be like a child” message is more powerful to me than ever before.  Zayne lives moment to moment.  When he is mad he is mad and when that moment is over he is happy, truly happy.  There is nothing he is stressing about in the back of his mind.  He is not worried about running out of popsicles while he is eating a popsicle, nope, he is LOVING his popsicle.    When he is in a moment of pain or sickness, he may cry he may work to make it go away.  But while he is in the moment, his focus is to get through it, he doesn’t carry the “what if” thoughts of, what if this feeling comes back, what if it never goes away.  And then when the uncomfortable moment is gone, he doesn’t spend his reprieve worrying about it returning.  Nope he goes to ride his toy gator through the yard having the best time of his life. 

They say he is too young to know better…But I have to ask…Maybe he does know better.