Old vs Young

A grandson was visiting his grandmother one day when he asked, Grandma, do you know how you and God are alike?"

I mentally polished my halo while I asked, "No, how are we alike?"

"You're both old," he said.

We ALL felt old this week as the new group filed in one by one. The old kids, who used to look so young, now look like high school kids. "Go fetch me coffee, child," which used to be a request of someone who came up to nearly my shoulder, is now the job of the kid who last year came up to my belt. "MMMM," I thought, "Wonder what will happen?"

In the kitchen, when we turn to one of the kids, our eyes aim high. "Where is she?" Then you look down, and there is this remarkably small child with an actual question or request.

It's the same every year, the only difference is personal and particular jolt as you realize that one that used to need help in the bathroom reaching the sink is helping to tie a shoe or the one who came to fetch the coffee.

Friendship between teacher and student never ceases to be a "senior" thing. I remember inviting three of my teachers to my wedding. "Sister Helen, I'm getting married, do you want to come? Here's an invitation. There's one for Sister Barbara and one for Sister Martha as well."

What she jolted at was not that the invitation was engraved at Tiffani's, but that the engraving bore the name of the teacher in the next classroom. Needless to say she came and we had a good laugh over it.

Thirty-five years later, I still understand what it means for a teacher to be friendly with the older kids and treat them a little differently. Befriending them is somehow their right as they achieve a certain classroom adn life expertise and they begin to grasp what it means to be a senior child and do all the work and know where everything is and how to do everything.

This year, we have a great group of senior kids. It will be a wonderful year, if we can just get those little ones to shape up. Somebody call the seniors!!!