Bittersweet story

We woke to find the house really cold today, and when Karen called the furnace repair they found the problem was a pregnant squirrel had crawled into our chimney and had her baby. Frankly, we'd heard some squeaking and clattering about in the ducts, but I just thought it was something the cat was doing.
When the furnace repairman finally got to them, he found the baby was alive but the mother was dead. Karen called me at work and after telling me what had happened she put Lili on the phone. Lili said with an equal touch of sadness and reporter-like stoicism, "There were two squirrels, the baby was alive but the mommy was dead." Then she started talking in the voice, I think, of the mother: "It's OK. I can see you, even though my eyes are closed. It's OK, I still love you even though my eyes are closed." At first I thought she was talking to me because she hasn't quite learned to preface a story for the listener (or maybe she doesn't really need the listener to know she's beginning a story), but when I realized she was "being" the mother, it really made me love her a lot.