Francis Gay

JIM’S daughter Eden is just at the learning to walk on her own stage.

Out in the garden during the week he watched fascinated as she explored every plant pot.

Then the inevitable happened and she fell. She cried to be picked up but Jim steeled himself and stayed back, hoping to encourage her to get back up when she fell.

Well, Eden turned on the tears and reached for her daddy. For about 30 seconds it wrenched his heart. Then she discovered pretty white stones to one side of her and buttercups to the other. Instantly, she was happy again!

“If there’s a lesson in that,” Jim told me later, “it’s that lots of the ‘falls’ we take in life turn out to be good things – once we stop crying and look around.”

“And buttercups always help,” I added. THE mother and toddler group didn’t always have someone in charge of teas and juices. But then Sarah came along.

In her 80s she was tired of sitting at home, rarely being visited by her children and grandchildren. She wanted to be involved with life again. So, she volunteered!

“I liked the idea of spending time with the little ones,” she explained.

“What I didn’t expect was the number of young mums who were on their own, or who didn’t have a mum in their lives.”

Suddenly her “old age” turned into a treasure trove of advice, comfort and wisdom. Now she’s like a mum to the mums!

“They’re not my daughters or my daughters-in-law,” Sarah told me.

“But, if they’ll have me I’m glad to be their mother-in-love!”