Kyle & Will - A Conversation from Kyle's Biggest Fan

Will may be Kyle Maynard's biggest fan.  When he was nearly 2, we flew to meet up with friends near Kyle's hometown and Will was able to meet Kyle.  He doesn't really remember the actual meeting but he has watched their meeting and wrestling in Kyle's gym at the end of a documentary about Kyle, A Fighting Chance, numerous times.  We've showed him the book Kyle autographed for him and we've talked about Kyle.

(As a side note, Kyle's mom has been a great support for me - I've emailed and called her with all sorts of questions and her insight and wisdom has been invaluable to me.)

Sunday morning, on our way to church, my mom's cousin, Dandy (who is really more of an aunt to me), texted me that she and her husband, who live far away, were about to have lunch with Kyle!  I texted back to tell Kyle that Will says hi.

And then.

Then I got this:

Will wanted to reply to Kyle and he sent this:

Kyle recently became the first amputee to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro unassisted!

Here's what his website states as their trip purpose:

To send a message to our heroes in the veteran community and to kids with disabilities around the world that regardless of any challenge we face, no obstacle is too great to be conquered.

(Pretty much that is one of our (several) goals for Will and Ellie - they can do whatever they set their hearts to!)

We've had several friends climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in recent years 

(Our dear friend Rick who happens to be our pediatrician - on the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro wearing his "Where There's a Way, There's a Will" shirt!)

We have dreams of someday climbing Mt. K with our kids.  It was so exciting to show Will Kyle's pictures of the climb and talk about what a huge accomplishment this was.

In fact, a few days later, when we learned that he needed to dress up as a famous American at school, one of his first ideas was to be "Kyle because he climbed Mt. mengaoijdjaro"  (I love his various pronunciations of Kilimanjaro.)  (When he received his cool NASA space suit, he decided to wear that to school as an astronaut and show the suit off...)

Then a few days ago, I overheard Will telling a friend this:

"You know who is stronger than anyone?  He's the biggest and strongest superhero of all?  God.  But you know who is the strongest human after God?  Kyle.  He climbed Mt zeirusjaro."

(Like a true fan, he manages to slip that into conversation with his friends.  I don't think the other kid had any clue what mountain Will was referring to.)

Will is a huge fan of Kyle.

And so are we.  Because Kyle is a successful business owner, published author, public speaker, professional wrestler, and more.

Because Kyle has good relationships with his mom and dad and his grandparents and his siblings and friends.  And mostly because Kyle loves God and wants to serve Him.  

Kyle is just a guy who does life and happens to do it really, really well.

And also - he's a congenital amputee affected in all of his limbs.  But that is just a part of who he is.

We don't really focus on limb differences.  It's part of our normal.  But whenever Will is around someone or sees someone on tv or skyping with limb differences... it's hard to describe really but his eyes change.  He kind of lights up and it seems like he just feels an instant connection - maybe it lessens a little bit of the loneliness of being different.   I got to see his eyes do that twice this weekend when we skyped with a friend far away who invests his time into Will monthly to answer questions and high five and then with Kyle's video.  Makes this mama's heart so full to see my boy's eyes sparkle extra bright.  I see his confidence just tip the scale even more (and clearly, Batman is pretty confident right now in himself.) 

So yeah.  We like that guys like Kyle are setting such great examples for lots of young men and boys - not just amputees.  But our hearts are especially thankful that our son can have a guy like to Kyle to look up to - to go to when he has the hard questions and faces the unique challenges to come.

Sunday's text video?  Will was pretty thrilled to hear from "cool Mr. Kyle."

And so were we.