Yes­ter­day, dur­ing my grand­daugh­ters  “quiet” time,  she asked if she could watch “The Fox and the Hound”.  It is a recent addi­tion to her new favorite movies as I try to bring her not only my kids favorites, but movies I think are classic.

She set­tled in to watch it and I set­tled in to get some paper work done. If you have never seen the movie, or for­got­ten, there is a very sad time in the movie when the woman who adopted Tod, the fox,realizes she needs to take him to a game pre­serve to pro­tect him from her angry, fox hunt­ing neigh­bor.  She sings a lovely, poignant song of his time with her.  As I glanced at the movie, then at my grand­daugh­ter on the couch, I saw that she had her arm up over her eyes and tears were stream­ing down her cheeks. I gath­ered her up and we both cried as she said good-bye to Tod. My grand­daugh­ter was openly sob­bing and it brought home just how quickly we come to know not only com­ings and goings, but the sad­ness of leav­ing and the bro­ken hearts that fol­low. She is four. If you talk to her about the movie later, when she is not watch­ing it, she still starts to cry. Some­times I think we for­get that even four year olds get it. That they know hap­pi­ness and they know sad­ness and I hope we respect that and never put them down for it. That we allow them to feel. Even in their small and pro­tected world, they get it.  Please remem­ber it too.