What can children teach us about joy?

Children can teach us to be in the moment. They can teach us how to love unconditionally. They can teach us how valuable stories can be and how we and they can learn from storytelling. Many years ago, I was visiting my daughter’s family at their fishing camp which is located at a beautiful lake. I was sitting on the boat dock and my grandchildren were playing in the water surrounding the dock. My seven year old granddaughter plunged head first under the water and I waited for her to surface but it seemed to me to be taking too long so I started taking off my shoes and was ready to dive in and find her. Just as I started to jump in the water, she popped to the surface with her arms out stretched and full of sea weed. I sighed with relief and laughingly told her she looked like a seaweed witch. At that point my 9 year old grandson stood up in the water and dramatically spread out his arms responding, “And I’m the God of the Sea! Tell us a story, Grandma.” So I started weaving a story about the relationship between the Seaweed Witch and the God of the Sea. But when my grandson realized I was going to conclude the story with a happy ending, he interrupted me and said with such sincerity, “Why do your stories always have happy endings, Grandma? All stories do not have happy endings!” I can’t say that his response brought me joy. I was speechless. But I can say that I found joy in his wisdom. He was my teacher that day. He was not sad when he shared that wisdom but he was so real. What he intuitively knew has taken me years to learn. Today, I can say that for me, God’s will is that I live in reality and I have found that accepting that has helped me be real. I remind myself that “What is IS” so I go with the flow. I understand that I will not always be worthy. I can still screw up. But I know from the depth of my being that I am of worth even when some days my story does not have a happy ending. For this I’m grateful.