After my run the other afternoon, I was sitting in the living room with the babies and the girls eating mango and salty chili sauce! (mmmmmm…I might add!) For some reason I decided to ask Sok’im when her birthday was…she didn’t quite understand me, so I explained Zachary’s birthday, Leak’s, Khamary’s, etc…a light bulb went off and she says, “My birthday, 12th of January.”…just a statement…ummmm…it WAS the 12th of January. I had to ask Khamary to make sure I was understanding her correctly…yep…it was her birthday and she had just spent the day cleaning my house and was hanging out eating mangos with me.
The mama in me said call Vichet for a ride…we need to celebrate with her…so off to Swenson’s we went:
On our way to ice cream I asked her if she had class that night…she did, and I said it was a bummer because we could have ordered pizza. She said OK, no school for me! We enjoyed ice cream first and then yummy “Pizza Company” pizza (chicken trio with cheese stuffed crust…heaven!) I would have liked to have made it really special for her…she kept saying, “Madam, thank you for my birthday”. Finally at the end of the day, she told me this was her FIRST birthday celebration…EVER. EVER people…EVER. I couldn’t believe it…Sok’im is 22 years old now and we got to celebrate with her for the first time. It was explained that here, people are very poor and they just don’t celebrate birthdays. So today I had to add one more thing to it and I took all of the girls out for mani/pedis…$9 for all of us. Z was in school and we brought the babies and sat around giggling, juggling babies and getting our toes prettied~!
I feel extremely lucky to know her and her bright smile…she’s appreciative and hard working. I trust her and really like her. As a mom, it makes me sad that her mother was never able to give her a birthday celebration. I mean, really, that’s who birthdays are for…whenever any of my babies has a birthday, I’m reminded of the perfect day they were welcomed into my arms. So, thank you Sok’im for celebrating your birthday with us! We love you!!!
Sounds like you might be starting a birthday tradition in the Kochel House. What I love the best about these relationships you are building is that you are benefiting as much as they are. How lucky you all are to have each other and how lucky they are to work for such a generous soul! Thant's why I love ya!
ReplyDeleteI read this post yesterday and all that comes to my mind is...
ReplyDeleteYou have the biggest heart I know. Your "help" is lucky to have you!!!