difficult lessons

Last year on Martin Luther King Jr Day, I debated what to tell Dennis about who he was and why he was important. It's not that I didn't want to educate him about a man who worked so diligently to right some very grievous wrongs. I didn't want to tell him that people were ever treated differently because of skin color. I was debating it again this year, and we were headed out to the pediatrician when he asked me why we didn't check the mail and then why it didn't come today (" it's Monday, Mom"). I told him it was a holiday. He said "okay" and we probably could have ended the conversation there, but I forged ahead. I told him it was a day to celebrate Martin Luther King. Dennis wanted to know if he was the King of America and did I ever meet him and did he come to Alabama... I told him that Martin Luther King taught us that we should love each other no matter what color we are, that we should respect and treat all people with kindness. He said "you mean people didn't do that? Jesus said we should love each other, and God made all the colors of people and loves them all." I told him that some people didn't respect people that were different colors. He asked what it meant to not respect them. I told him it would be like being mean to Grace because her hair is yellow or being mean to Daddy because his eyes are brown or treating Zoe badly because her skin is brown. He agreed that would be terrible and said "God wants us to all love each other even if some people are pink or brown or purple!". I told him that's what Dr. King was famous for teaching. And then we arrived at the pediatrician's office which happens to be right beside City Park. That's when we noticed that a parade was lining up. Dennis stood outside and waved and watched it go by and didn't want to come inside the office (he has an eye infection AND an ear infection, poor thing), and I told him that if the doctor visit didn't take too long, we'd go find and watch more of the parade. We caught up with it downtown and he waved and smiled at everyone (and wanted to march along but didn't feel good enough). When we got to Winn Dixie to drop off his prescription, he excitedly told everyone about the Martin Luther King parade and how we should be nice and love everybody. I'm glad he got the message. He asked me how I learned about MLK, and I told him it was in school. I wonder if he'll be as horrified as I was when I learned how bad it really was. When he's older, we can talk more about it, but I think he got just enough information for someone his age.