
Watching as your children hurt is one of the most awful things any parent can encounter. Hearing your child come home and say that no one will play with him or her on the playground or that someone won’t be their friend is hard. You want to go handle that situation right away, but it’s not nice or legal to threaten other people’s kids (I’m kidding, but parents you know what I mean). You have to let your kids learn from their mistakes, learn to experience things that might be uncomfortable and you have to let them learn life lessons the hard way from time to time. But imagine being a little girl diagnosed with a very rare genetic disorder at the age of one that causes her to grow very quickly, making her much larger than the kids in her class. Not only does she not really have any close friends because she is not like the other kids, she is learning hard life lessons every day at the tender age of 10. Just days before her birthday, everyone in her class declined the invitation to attend.
She was devastated, and her parents just could not allow their almost 10-year-old daughter, Mackenzie Moretter, to suffer at her party. She was so excited and not having anyone say they’d come was difficult on her. Her mother decided to get on her Facebook page and ask that at least 10 people come to her daughter’s party and bring a friend her daughter’s age. She hoped a few people would show up at the local park, but she was not expecting at least 300 attendees.
The mayor, Minnesota Vikings player Charles Johnson and even Elsa from Frozen attended the party, bringing their friends and families, and even the local Sams Club and restaurant stepped up to provide food free of charge when they realized how many people were there to celebrate with the little girl.
“I have a hard time making friends in school, but thanks to all of you, my voice was heard. I love you all,” the birthday girl said to the crowd. But it wasn’t just this little girl who was given an amazing gift for her birthday; it was everyone that attended. One of the people from the local mayor’s office stated that Mackenzie actually gave them a gift by reminding them that they have to be kind to one another and make sure that they treat their neighbors as friends. It is a lesson we could all use.
Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
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