Charlotte, North Carolina —What may look like home to you is far more wonderful to the boy inside. Told.
“You go through this before you go to big heaven. That’s what I believe,” Abraham told CBS News.
And he literally means it. Abraham and James are from Sierra Leone. They were homeless before going to an orphanage, but eventually ended up in a new home near Charlotte, North Carolina after being adopted by Joe and Jamie Walker last fall.
The Walkers say the boys have been wide-eyed in wonder ever since.
“All the things we take for granted.
“Everything is magic for them,” added Jamie Walker.
Whether it’s a present from Santa Claus showing up on Christmas morning or something as mundane as a car wash, children are always blown away.
But the biggest surprise and most serious reaction came last month as the family celebrated what would have been Abraham’s 12th birthday. Due to the lack of record keeping in Sierra Leone, we do not know exactly how old the boys are. When asked how he celebrated his birthday before his adoption, Abraham replied, “That’s going to be a crazy question.”
“I never celebrated them. I didn’t know it was my birthday,” he said.
So when the song started and his mom showed up with a birthday cake, Abraham was overwhelmed.
“When I saw the cake, I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he said. “It’s not just a birthday cake. It’s a blessing cake.”
And what a blessing it is to have friends and family come together once a year just to honor our presence. Most of us take that for granted, but not in this house.
“We need to stop and be very grateful for what we have,” Joe Walker reminds us.
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Steve Hartman
