Are You Okay?

December 1st, 2024

Our grandson, Asher, will be four years old tomorrow. At times, he seems much older than that. He often acts like the preschooler that he is, but sometimes he surprises me. Years ago, when our youngest son, Stefan, was as old as Asher, the pastoral associate at our church described him as having “an old soul”. Stefan had a maturity and confidence (sometimes cockiness) that was unusual for a boy his age. Asher is like his uncle in that respect. They both are wise beyond their years.

Asher can be a handful. He needs things to be a certain a way, and he freaks out when they aren’t. It might be how I set the table for a meal. It might be how I slice him some cheese. It might be how I move his toys out of my way. Asher has had four years of chaos and instability in his life. I think that he gets upset about minor changes because he needs some kind of control over his environment in order to feel safe. Still, it can be infuriating to me when nothing I do for him seems to be right. I rapidly run out of patience with the boy. When I do so, he has a meltdown, and only calms down after he tells me with tears in his eyes,

“Grandpa, pick me up!”

I do, and he slowly relaxes in my arms. I start to relax too. I’m old, and it takes my body quite a while to let go of negative energy. The last time I held him after we had a confrontation, he looked at me and asked,

“Grandpa, are you okay?”

I thought for a while, shook my head, and replied, “I don’t know.”

Then he asked, “Are okay a little bit?”

I sighed. “Yeah, I’m okay a little bit.”

I held him some more. He rested his head on my right shoulder. Then he said,

“Grandpa, I like you.”

“I like you too.”

Asher told me, “I like you as much as I love you.”

That stumped me. I never had a little boy say that to me. I’m not sure I ever had anyone say that to me. I didn’t say anything. I just held him a bit tighter.

Asher is wise for a four-year-old.