{"id":2494,"date":"2023-05-07T19:53:49","date_gmt":"2023-05-07T19:53:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/?p=2494"},"modified":"2023-05-07T19:53:49","modified_gmt":"2023-05-07T19:53:49","slug":"a-humbling-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/a-humbling-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"A Humbling Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note<\/strong>:\u00a0 This week G-ma welcomes a guest writer.\u00a0 She’s our beloved sister, and we’ll call her G-aunt here. Enjoy G-aunt’s reflections on how deftly small children put us in our places and teach us what only they can.<\/em><\/p>\n

He\u2019s named for his dad, looks like his mom, and acts like \u2014 himself. \u00a0My grandson operates his own way and on his own schedule.\u00a0 He wouldn\u2019t crawl for a long time, then went along sideways on one hip. \u00a0He wouldn\u2019t walk for a long time, then stood up, started running and hasn\u2019t stopped. \u00a0He frisbeed his plate of holiday food across the room into the Christmas tree, announcing helpfully, \u201cI frew my plate.\u201d Yeah, thanks little dude, we noticed.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t expect that, but we noticed.<\/p>\n

His sister, age four, recently pedaled her new bike into a parked car and apparently was stung when her dad chuckled despite her upset.\u00a0 She told us he couldn\u2019t understand her feelings \u201cbecause he doesn\u2019t live inside my body. \u00a0He isn\u2019t me.\u201d \u00a0Seriously? \u00a0We know adults age forty<\/em>-four who can\u2019t grasp that concept.<\/p>\n

When the father of these two (our son) was their age, he told us through tears that he was scared about \u201cthe sun burning out.\u201d Attempting comfort, we assured him the sun will be around many more thousands of years. No dice. \u00a0\u201cBut you know how grandma and grandpa had you, and you had me, and I\u2019ll have kids and then they\u2019ll have kids? \u00a0SOMEBODY in our family,\u201d he wailed, \u201cwill be here when the sun burns out!\u201d \u00a0Um, you might have a point there, kid.<\/p>\n

Our daughter, their young aunt, was never one to shrink from reality, much less shrink from describing it. While visiting her kindergarten class many years ago, I gushed about how happy I was to be there, how proud I was to be her mother, how nice her classroom was. \u00a0Her response? \u00a0\u201cMom, your breath stinks.\u201d \u00a0Nothing like a cold hard truth to get you over yourself.<\/p>\n

I often have wondered:\u00a0 who exactly ARE these small people? \u00a0And who sent them here to confound us, inspire us, touch us and yank our feet back to the ground?<\/p>\n

I do not know, but I do know this:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a sacred privilege for their little souls to have been given into our keeping, if only for a short while.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an honor to witness and enjoy their astonishing individuality, and to love and guide them as best we can in the time we are given.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s a humbling thing that the little ones we seek to teach, teach us so much: \u00a0To be ourselves. \u00a0To understand that others can\u2019t always sympathize. \u00a0To think ahead. To keep it real.<\/p>\n

Ah, the joy and the wonder of it\u2014 for us and all the world to be blessed with the wisdom of the children. May it ever be so.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note:\u00a0 This week G-ma welcomes a guest writer.\u00a0 She’s our beloved sister, and we’ll call her G-aunt here. Enjoy G-aunt’s reflections on how deftly small children put us in our places and teach us what only they can. He\u2019s named for his dad, looks like his mom, and acts like \u2014 himself. \u00a0My grandson […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[248,246,247,249],"class_list":["post-2494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grandkids","tag-g-aunt","tag-guest-author","tag-guest-blogger","tag-sacred-privilege"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}