A Kind Conversation

Photos: my own

 My two granddaughters are both fifteen. I was once fifteen.

Well, of course you were. No-one skips a year.

I wore long grey school socks, and I had a friend called Sybil.

I expect she had long grey socks too.

Yes. Cold knees in the winter. Chilblains on our toes. It was very cold in Bedfordshire. Icicles and snow. A coal fire in the living room, and Journey into Space on the wireless.

Mm.

It doesn’t seem so very long ago. 

I suppose not.

My two youngest grandsons are twelve. I was once twelve.

I think we’ve established that no-one skips a year.

When you’re about to be classed as old, the years seem to have galloped by.

And…

I’m not actually the same person I was at twelve or fifteen or twenty-five or…

Is that good or bad?

I’ve learnt so much, about people, and about how kindness and understanding are gifts that can be nurtured.

Ah.

There’s another gift that is vital to anyone’s growing.

And that is?

Forgiveness. I think that might be the best gift of all.

Come on. Let’s go outside and look at the seeds we planted yesterday.

                                      

 Veronica Bright loves telling stories. As a former reception class teacher in a village  primary school, the best part of the day was gathering the children together and  making up all sorts of amazing things. Her pupils probably believed there was an elf living in the cupboard, and that the spider who frequented the sink had the power of speech. They inspired her non-fiction books for collective worship and many of her prize-winning short stories, now self-published in three collections.