When my grandson was six he liked to tell his mother, "Mommy, you're beautiful." He would tease his father, who is several years older than his mother, and say, "Daddy, you're old!" Then he would giggle. It was at a time when he was expressing certain concepts he was growing to understand, such as age and relationships. He would say things to me like, "You're my grandmother. You're my mom's mother." For whatever reason, he felt the need to state these understandings out loud and directly to us.

One day he was staying with me and he told me, "Grandma, you're old!" I agreed with him immediately, because I knew that to him I was "old" even though I was in my early fifties and quite fit. Then he paused and became very serious. In an entirely different tone and attitude he looked at me and said, "I used to be an old man. Then I was a baby, and now I'm a boy."

He was thoughtful when he made that comment, serious rather than joking, as though he was remembering something right then and feeling the memory. It was stated very casually. Prior to that, he had just been poking fun at me. But when he said he had been an old man, then a baby, and now a boy, he said it in a matter-of-fact way, like he was giving me real information, and also telling me, "I used to be like you."

Then, like children will, he turned away and began to play with some toy, offering no more information about the time he was an old man. Perhaps it was only a fleeting memory and there was no more information to be had. He forgot all about his comment, but I never have.

Please respond to John

Posted Feb 19, 2011