Can grown-ups get back their childhood long lost? No, that’s impossible. Of course, it’s true we can never recapture our childhood, but can attain the state of being of a child mentally by loving children and being in their pleasant company.
To be a child once again in mind and mood is to be happy, outgrowing mundane worries and adult anxieties. This is exactly what I’ve experienced recently when our elder son came home with his family.
That morning, seated on a chair on the veranda, I was reading the newspaper. All of a sudden, I was jolted out of my reading with boisterous laughter and incessant screams of our granddaughters. I looked around and found that the noise was coming from the terrace. So I turned inquisitive and to know why they were screaming and laughing, I went on to the terrace where my spouse has nurtured a beautiful garden of roses, hibiscus, marigold, chrysanthemum and a huge variety of other plants. There I beheld our two granddaughters, running, frolicking, playing, laughing and screaming. The elder one, six years old, was sauntering along the rows of the neatly arranged flower pots and peering at the blossoms with her wonder-struck eyes and touching them gently. She was smiling like an angel and surprisingly, she was not plucking even a single flower. She was savouring quietly the beauty of the flowers.
The younger one, just three years old, was running swiftly on her little feet, screaming and laughing. She was running after butterflies, flitting around flowers. With her little hands raised, she was running to catch butterflies. When her hands reached closer to a butterfly and she was about to have it in her grasp, she laughed triumphantly as if she was going to possess a treasure. But when the butterfly gave the slip, rose into the air and kept hovering over her little head, she screamed incessantly. However, she was persistent and kept chasing butterflies, laughing and screaming.
Elated at their cheery play, forgetting my age, once again I became a child and joined them, taking part in the fun and frolic. Along with them, I was eyeing and touching blooms tossing in the morning breeze, chasing butterflies, screaming and laughing. Coming on to the terrace and watching me play with the grandchildren, my spouse remarked, “You too have become a child.”
“Yes, now I am a child in the company of our grandchildren, seeking the bliss of heaven,” I muttered. My wife with a twinkle in her eyes just smiled at me.
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