August 29, 2011

            Recently, while babysitting with my two great-granddaughters, Rori was playing with my cane.  She was doing the things that you would expect a 3+ year-old to do with a cane.  She was riding it, walking with it and waving it around in the air.  Then she turned to me and said, “I’m going to keep this.  I’ll buy you a new one.”

            “But I like my cane,” I said, “and I’d like to keep it.”

            “Well, now it’s purple,” she explained.  (No – in fact it was the same color it had always been – only her imagination had colored it to her favorite color)

            I said with a sad face, “It is a lovely shade of purple, however I would rather it were red.”

            “Oh, alright!” she sighed and went off to play.

            Several minutes later she returned with her arms outstretched before her and the cane lying across the arms.  “Now it’s red.  But it isn’t dry yet,” she said and laid it on the couch next to me.  I admired what a lovely job she had done in coloring it red and commented that I really liked the white stripes she had added.

            She picked up the cane and resumed playing with it.  A few minutes later she came up to me and with a sense of wonder in her voice proclaimed, “It’s purple again!  The red blew off!”