Little Girl, Lots of Band-aids

Any kid who has spent any amount of time outdoors knows to grab a bandaid when they’ve skinned their knee. They also know that while the bandaid doesn’t heal the wound, it protects the body from infection and buys the wound time to heal.

“Excuse me miss, do you have a band-aid?”

I turned my head to see who was talking to me, but couldn’t see anyone.

“Miss?”

I looked down and there was a little girl who couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6.

"Did you cut yourself?”

She shook her head.

"Well, what do you need a bandaid for?"

“My mama gives me band-aids when I’m hurt.”

For a second, I didn’t understand what she was talking about. Then it hit me.

“Is that your mama in the casket?”

She nodded.

“Let’s get you a band-aid.”

I went back to the first aid kit, and grabbed a handful of band-aids. We sat on a pew in the back of the chapel, and I began to open them for her. I asked her to point to where she was hurt, and we put a band-aid on it. By the time we were done, she was covered with band-aids, on her arms, legs, and even on the back of her neck.

She looked ridiculous, and eventually, I was out of band-aids.

“Better?” I asked her.

“No, but thank you very much.”

She stood up, and scampered over to her father who looked at her in surprise and asked her what happened. He knelt down to listen to her answer. I didn’t hear what she said, but he stood, looked back at me and mouthed, “ Thank you.”

There isn’t very much that gets to me in this field, but that little girl definitely broke my heart. This was definitely one of those times where I had to pinch my inner arm to keep my game face on.

All I did was give a little girl a band-aid.

Band-aids were never meant to be healing. They just buy you the time you need to heal.

I hope I bought her enough time.