Taking a risk pays off
An earlier column was based on a letter from a man who was anxious about contacting the eight-year-old daughter of a woman with whom he had ended a three-year relationship. He had not been in touch with her for two years, but had heard from friends that the little girl missed him badly.
In my reply, I suggested he take a risk and reach out to the girl, but in a way designed not to set up false hopes for her or her mother.
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He thought about my suggestion for a while, and then in early September he went to the little girl’s birthday party. The results were:
“I have never been hugged like that in my life. She (the girl) sprang off the front doorstep, threw herself at me, and clung to my neck for what seemed like five minutes. Wow! We had a good time. The mother and I got along as friends, and you were correct, she appears to have toned down the negative side of her personality.
“As for the little girl, she’s a darling. She told her mother that meeting up with me again was her best birthday present. I’ve agreed to take her cycling this weekend.
“It seems we can never do wrong when we work to bring happiness in someone else’s world. Some wise person once said that our days are never wasted when we bring even short bursts of joy into the hearts of little ones. He (or she) was right.”
Taking a chance
This man made a child’s life alive again because he took a risk. He didn’t try and push himself on her. He didn’t have to. He came and let her respond. And she literally jumped at him in a typical childlike expression of affection.
Why did I suggest he do so? I went by the information I received from the child, via his letter. The child had written to him, asking to be his penpal. The child had sent him a homemade birthday card. He was obviously still part of that child’s life.
And when he was able to overcome his fear and anxiety and realized it was the child, not the mother who was reaching out to him, he was able to take that risk and meet the child’s needs.
We all need to listen to children, to their feelings, their words and their behaviors. But too often, we don’t. And when children reach out to us, we need to take the risk and reach back to them. That is how those “short bursts of joy” come to be, not just for children but for us all.
