Hi Friends,
This past week I have been trying to wrap my brain around what happened in Charleston and all the grief that the victim’s families must feel. In my short time living here, I have truly fallen in love with Charleston, South Carolina. There is something special about this city and the people who live here. The history of Charleston, though turbulent, is also amazingly rich. We were coming from (tear down anything old and put up a condo) Charlotte. Charleston’s history is on display with the antebellum homes, plantations and culture. It is this environment that we want to raise our kids.
My oldest son, Knox, is 6 and for better or worse we have successfully shielded him from most “bad” things in the world. He is on the anxious side, so we took special care to curate what he was exposed to. After moving here we had to talk about “scary things” like hurricanes and why you have to watch out for alligators at the dog park. We started the discussion on the wars that occurred in Charleston and slavery.
My husband and I were struggling on what to tell him about last week’s shooting. We had to talk to him before he heard about it from someone else. How do you explain to a 6-year-old that people were in a church during bible study and a man entered the church with a gun and killed them? I thought about this as I was scanning Facebook and came across a drawing created by a 7-year-old girl.
Madeleine Schimming successfully illustrated the point that I wanted to get across to Knox….Love is stronger than hate. My husband and I sat down with Knox and told him what happened in Charleston in simple and clear statements. After a lot of questions, I showed him the illustration above. He studied the drawing intently and asked about the angels and the people below with hearts and how it all fit together. This little drawing helped him understand (to some degree) the tragic event downtown and how our community is reacting. Thank you Madeleine Schimming for sharing your art with the world.
XOXO Carmody
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