“Look at this!” A boy, about four years old with clear hazel eyes, a round nose, a broad face, and cropped sandy hair held a DVD case out for me to see.
“Wow!” I answered in a whisper so as not to disturb the other library goers.
I had been watching him climb up the book stand that held a huge open atlas at the top. Just as he had climbed high enough to identify the book lying on top of the stand, his “Mamaw” glanced over at him and told him to climb down.
He lowered his foot, reaching for the ground; he hesitated when his foot didn’t connect with anything. Then he jumped all six inches to the floor.
With a sigh, he plunked down in the chair beside me. I looked up from pretending to study the chemical reactions governing intracellular respiration in my Advanced Biology text book. I smiled at him.
He hopped up from his seat and retrieved his book and DVD from his mamaw. Taking his seat, he set the book down, jumped up again, and walked over to me.
“Look at this!”
“Wow! Have you seen it?”
“No, but I have it now.”
“Which one is your favorite character?”
He pointed to the yellow boxy claymation character on the front of the case, and he proceeded to explain to me how that character got hit in the head by a snowball. Luckly though, one of the other characters was able to fix it. After he explained to me the intricate details of this TV show, he showed me his book. He had picked it out as a “present for Mamaw.”
Being four is so much fun. You can talk to people whom you’ve never met before. Thoughts like, “What are they thinking about me?” don’t even begin to occur to you. You haven’t learned to laugh at fewer jokes because you don’t have a “sophisticated sense of humor.” Giving a gift doesn’t have a thing to do with whether or not the receiver keeps the gift.
Of course, I’d never trade back a single year of my life, but maybe, even while gaining maturity and wisdom, I don’t want to “grow-up…” not in a conventional sense anyway.
The little boy’s Mamaw finished picking out her book and called for him to go.
“Bye!” he waved to me, “My name's Tristan.” He skipped out of the room.
11 comments:
Awww... I love kids. <3 Is that you in the picture?
:) Yep, that's me, haha.
That's so cute! That picture of you is too! :D
BTW have you ever read Dr Suess' "Your only old once?"
Wow, that little girl in the picture sure is cute! ;-) I love the way you write, Avery!! :D I wish I could write like that... :) <3
Four year olds are awesome. In fact, I work with them when I volunteer at Hope's Sunday School.
Haha... I think it's ironic all these high schoolers going "I love kids." :-P Just thought I'd point that out...
><> Brian
Alex: Oh my gosh! just discovered that book last week. I was in the library in the section with Shakespeare, Louis Carrol, and Oscar Wilde. I looked over and saw this Dr. Suess book sticking out. I was sort of befuddled as to why that would be in this particular section of the library, but when I read it...it made sense. Great book
Joy: Thanks :)
Brian: haha. you know what we mean. :p
Lol Seriously, it is probably his best book! That and The Butter Battle Book... lol
CUTENESS RADAR calls for an off-the-scale 5 for both the your picture and the little boy!!! :D That specific picture of you reminds me of Madeleine's little sister Claire. :-)
I almost see what you're saying about Claire, except she's almost ten. :)
Adorable story, and so true. Kids have such a joyful unassuming attitude; they say so much to us old 'smart' people, even when they say so little.
That story reminds me so much of Andrew, He will tell me all about his cars and how fast they are, and how their size makes some of them slow etc.
The point that I liked the most though, is what you said in the middle of the story, the part about growing up. Sometimes when we grow up we loose things, like the general acceptance of everyone. I guess if I stopped thinking about myself, and I focused on what God thought of me and what he valued, I would have Tristan's view of life. It would be just like a child, but a mature child. Someone who reveled in everyone and every thing regardless of who they were or what it was. I think C.S. Lewis said it best in the Screwtape Letters, "The Enemy wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his own favor that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbors talents-or in a sunrise, and elephant, or a waterfall. He wants each man, in the long run, to be able to recognize all creatures (even himself) as glorious and excellent things. He wants to kill their animal self love as soon as possible; but his long term policy, I fear, is to restore to them a new kind of self-love, a charity and gratitude for all selves, including his own; when they have really learned to love their neighbors as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbors. For we must never forget what is the most repellent and inexplicable trait in our Enemy; He Really loves the hairless bipeds he has created, and always gives back to them with His right hand what He has taken away with His left."
I love that quote. You do write beautiful stories Avery, thanks for this one.
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