elderly man in a wheelchair into the room. As she went to the
receptionist's
desk, the man sat there, alone and silent. Just as I was thinking I should
make
small talk with him, a little boy slipped off his mother's lap and walked
over to
the wheelchair. Placing his hand on the man's, he said, I know how you
feel. My
Mom makes me ride in the stroller, too.'
*****
As I was nursing my baby, my cousin's six-year-old daughter, Krissy, came
into
the room. Never having seen anyone breastfeed before, she was intrigued
and
full of all kinds of questions about what I was doing. After mulling over
my answers,
she remarked, 'My mom has some of those, but I don't think she knows how to
use
them.'
*****
Out bicycling one day with my eight-year-old granddaughter, Carolyn, I got
a little
wistful. 'In ten years,' I said, 'you'll want to be with your friends and
you won't go
walking, biking, and swimming with me like you do now. Carolyn shrugged.
'In ten
years you'll be too old to do all those things anyway.'
******
Working as a pediatric nurse, I had the difficult assignment of giving
immunization
shots to children. One day, I entered the examining room to give
four-year-old Lizzie
her needle. 'No, no, no!' she screamed. 'Lizzie,' scolded her mother,
'that's not polite
behavior.' With that, the girl yelled even louder, 'No, thank you! No,
thank you!
******
On the way back from a Cub Scout meeting, my grandson innocently said to my
son, I
know babies come from Mommies' tummies, but how do they get there in the
first place?'
After my son hemmed and hawed awhile, my grandson finally spoke up in
disgust, 'You
don't have to make up something, Dad. It's okay if you don't know the
answer.'
*****
Just before I was deployed to Iraq, I sat my eight-year-old son down and
broke the news
to him. "I'm going to be away for a long time," I told him. "I'm going to
Iraq." "Why?" he asked.
"Don't you know there's a war going on over there?"
*****
Paul Newman founded the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp for Children stricken
with cancer, AIDS
and blood diseases. One afternoon, he and is wife, Joanne Woodward, stopped
by to have
lunch with the kids. A counselor at a nearby table, suspecting the young
patients wouldn't know
Newman was a famous movie star, explained, That's the man who made this
camp possible.
Maybe you've seen his picture on his salad dressing bottle?' Blank stares.
'Well, you've probably
seen his face on his lemonade carton.' An eight-year-old girl perked up.
'How long was he missing?'
*****
His wife's graveside service was just barely finished, when there was a
massive clap of thunder,
followed by a tremendous bolt of lightning, accompanied by even more
thunder rumbling in the
distance. The little old man looked at the pastor and calmly said, "Well,
she's there."
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