Where, Oh Where, Did We Lose It?

I was playing with my grandson, Krish.

He is a bundle of joy and a fount of inexhaustible energy, and he soon wore me out. I flopped on the sofa and said, “Tatha needs a rest.”

“Tatha” means grandpa in Kannada, my native tongue.

Krish was having none of it. “Play with me,” he insisted.

In desperation I held up a throw rug in front of me. “Tatha has gone away,” I announced. “Go find him.”

He was puzzled and unsure about what was going on. He lifted the bottom of the throw rug and caught my eye. And burst into laughter.

And straight away we had a new game. I held up the throw rug, a shawl, a towel and other fabrics and announced that Tatha was missing, and he found me, and we laughed together. I took the throw rug and tucked it under my feet and held it firm so he could not peer underneath it. I felt his small hands trying to pry the edges loose and clasped it tightly. He went away and I wondered where he was.

I was about to sneak off quietly to the bedroom when I felt a tickle on the back of my neck. Krish had circled around to the back of the sofa, clambered on his stool and dislodged the rug from my head. Doubtless Alexander learnt to capture mountain fortresses while playing similar games in his youth.

Krish caught my eye and noted my puzzlement and he laughed and laughed and laughed. I thought he would burst. “Do it again, Tatha,” he insisted. I was finally able to get him to sit down while I read to him.

And I remembered Matthew 18–3: “Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

Go back to your childhood. Remember how the littlest things could evoke wonder and joy. The first snowfall of the season. A cat chasing its tail. A caterpillar turning into a pupa.

And now even expensive exotic vacations do not bring a fraction of that joy.

What happened? Where did that wonder go?

In my next blog I will show you how to recapture some of that in your life.

Peace!