Empathy

One day a couple of weeks ago I was sitting on the couch, busy making a list of things I needed to get done over the next day. I was totally focused and ignored most of what was going on around me in the living room when I heard a gasp from Joshua.  I looked up at him and he was standing in the middle of the living room with his hands over his mouth, looking at the television.  Before I could look at the T.V. to see what he was looking at, he smiled BIG and yelled out YAY while clapping.  I finally looked over to see what he was reacting so strongly to and it was a Dairy Queen commercial about kids being treated by Children's Hospital.  It was a gut wrenching commercial that tugged at your heart strings, but what also had me tearing up was just being so grateful that my rough and tumble, toy gun shooting, ghost hunting, future Marine, all boy child is able to empathize with others.  This of course, is not the first reminder of this.  He's always been like that - both of my boys are.  I guess I just worry sometimes that they won't always be like that.  That it will become easy for them to not even really see what others may be going through around them.  I want my boys to always be like this - to feel for other, to want to help.