Using your head is child’s play when you are young

I don’t think the shopkeeper knew the customer. As he handed the man his change, he said – with charming old-world style, “You’re looking very happy today, sir.”

The man was a little taken aback.

“Am I?” he asked. “I must just be pretending! No… that’s not it. I’m doing a favour for someone, and it’s not going very well. That’s why I needed this.” He held up his purchase. “To, hopefully, make it better. But… perhaps my face just thought a smile might help as well.”

The shopkeeper hesitated. Then, as if recognising a fellow brave soul. He held out a hand – and they shook on it.

I don’t know what the favour was, why it wasn’t going well, or how it ended up. But, I do know that putting a smile on a difficult situation made at least that little bit of the day better for those in the shop.

The little girls were hunkered down at either side of the path.

One of them was exploring the ornamental stones, the other was entranced by a tulip still wet from a recent shower. Their mother waited at the end of the path with their double-buggy. She obviously had places to go, but she seemed disinclined to hurry them along.

“It’s a fascinating world at that age,” I said.

“At any age,” she replied. “She’s young,” my companion said as we walked on. “She’ll learn.” I got the impression he didn’t agree and was sure she would come round to his way of thinking sooner or later.

‘Maybe she will,’ I thought. ‘And that would surely be a sad thing. Perhaps, instead, we could un-learn our cynicism, our worldweariness, and rediscover the joy to be had in pretty stones and rain-dappled flowers.’

Polly’s five-year-old son was playing host to his four-year-old cousin. They went upstairs to play. A few minutes later Polly began hearing some worrying bumps.

She rushed up to investigate. What the boys had been doing gave her “palpitations”. They’d sat a large cardboard box on the bed, both climbed inside it, and rocked it until it fell off the bed.

“You could both have been hurt!” she protested, as she folded the box away.

“No, we wouldn’t,” her son insisted. “How can you say that?” she asked.

“Easy!” he explained. “Because I was holding his head and he was holding mine!”

Polly’s sure it made complete sense to them. She was less sure the law of gravity would have respected their precautions for much longer.

But, they did each try to take the other’s safety, literally, into their own hands. And that’s a much better example to follow!

We were in a coffee shop next to a couple with a little boy I took to be their grandson.

Gran passed the boy to Grandpa while she went to get another coffee. The little boy wailed the entire time she was away from him. Grandpa had to lift him up so he could keep Gran in sight.

He looked over, and laughed. “It’s ridiculous, I know. But he’s all about his Gran. I don’t even get a look in. Biologically, they aren’t even related. I was married before. But… loveologically… neither of them cares. She’s the centre of his world when he’s with us, and he’s the centre of hers.”

Lovely, but that word stayed in my mind. Surely, he had just made it up on the spot! How different, and better, might things be if the world was run not according to logical rules, but along love-ological lines?

It’s always good to talk a while, to someone on their own. A chat can make a difference, in person or by ‘phone. To lift somebody’s spirit, when their day is pretty bleak, shows the power of friendship, and the need to share and speak.

WRITE TO: Francis Gay, The Sunday Post, Speirs View, 50 High Craighall Road, Glasgow G4 9UD or EMAIL: francisgay@sundaypost.com