Are young kids getting smarter?

Or was I just a particularly stupid child?

’cause this lil chick’s making me seriously question that:

Don’t be fooled by the girly “Little Miss Sunshine” gear or the face full’a makeup. This kid’s 100% and a half bad ass. And she proved it after the plane carrying her entire family crashed into the Kentucky wilderness last week. After coming to, she made the horrible realization that her mother, father, and sister had perished – and that the aircraft was now on fire. But what she did next was pretty much amazing. Instead of panicking (like I would’ve done), 7-year-old Sailor (awesome name) grabbed a tree branch, used the plane flames to turn it into a torch and light the darkened rainy night as she departed her deceased family in search for help.

One mile. Inclement weather. No shoes. One sock. Broken bones.

Bad Ass.

Horrific as this story is, there’s something major to be gained from it. A child comes into the world and every parent’s first worry is that it’s going to die. It’s going to die while sleeping when it gets home from the hospital. It’s going to die from touching a light socket when it learns to crawl. It’s going to die later from generic world dangers. When your little bundle of joy’s still just a bundle of needs, this fear is rational and helps you keep them alive. As they start to grow, however, you’re meant to become more of a gracious host into this world – showing them all the rooms in the hotel – including the dangerous ones. Because danger is part of the package deal when you choose to live in reality. The only way to win against danger is to provide your mini-mi the tools to slay it in the face. Providing a spread wing as a canopy against dealing with it… is not. What happens when that wing disappears? And that’s the big thing I think a lot of overprotective parents (not just how mine were with me – but a good deal of others) tend to forget. You will die. It’s horrible to think of, but it’s true. Even if Sailor’s parents had safely landed that plane and enjoyed the rest of 2015 taking amazing similar sky-treks, they would have died eventually – just like everyone else’s parents. Sadly, they left their daughter prematurely. Thankfully, they also obviously left her some invaluable tools with which to face danger head on, and logically, when they did. Good on them.

Because had it been sheltered li’l me in that plane, I’d have stayed there with my seat belt on.

And poking the lifeless bodies of my parents, while calling their names repetitively like a Hindu mantra.

Till I died.