I am reminded of the opening lines of that beautiful song The greatest Love of all. The words are:
‘I believe the children are our future.
Teach them well and let them lead the way.
Show them all the beauty they possess inside,
Give them a sense of pride
To make it easier.
Let the children’s laughter
Remind us who we used to be.”
Isn’t it sad that the laughter of children should remind us of who we used to be? We take life way too seriously and along the way we lose our gift of finding joy in life and laughter.
One of the greatest gifts I have experienced and also observed in others is regaining that ability to enjoy the small things and experience joy in every day without even searching for it.
I told my grandchildren the story of a hailstorm and me not knowing where my cat was. I stood at the door and called her, and she did not come in. I had a dilemma. The hail stones were blown into the house by a strong wind. This made the floor wet, and it was very wet outside. I could not keep the door open for my cat to come in and get more hailstones inside the house. I could not go out and risk slipping in the wet with hailstones pelting down at me. I could not close the door and leave the cat outside – that would be cruel. I was also concerned about her trying to come in through a metal door while there was a lot of lightning outside. What to do?
Then I heard my cat miaow and looked behind me. There she was, bone dry, and looking at me as if I was a mad woman. It turned out she was sleeping in the bedroom and came down when I called her.
My grandchildren had belly laughs from enjoying the story, and that made me realise how funny it must have looked.
It is so important for me to share laughs with my grandchildren and to help them realise the gifts they have. My interaction with them always helps me realise that we cannot have too much joy in our lives, and that it is so easy for adults to remove joy from each other’s lives.
Let’s focus today on not doing that, and on giving each other the present of joy. Namaste.
