A small crescendo soared in my heart last week during a hot afternoon as we walked back from the library and she asked to be carried. "Someday you will feel a small weight against your strong back..." the words from my favorite childrens book. Experienced as I hoisted her up and felt her lean trusting against me, head nestled in the bend of my neck, peacefully breathing a little slower, at rest in the knowledge that I would take her home.
Another image of that innocence is painted on the side of a brick building a few blocks away. And I cannot get enough of it, returning often to stand and wonder. And to cry behind my sunglasses. For innocence lost. For the small girls around the world who will not sleep in safety tonight, who do not have a strong back to lean on. Who have already lost their ability to dream and hope. And lifting them up I hold my little girl tight.
