Our youngest schoolboy

“We have been here before!” My husband and I smiled at one another. Yes, now that we are both retired, we are doing full APOstolic work daily, happily, gratefully! And just as we used to bring our children to school when they were young, now we join our daughter and her husband bring our youngest schoolboy to his toddler class. We are probably just as or even more excited than our first grandchild now that his daily routine includes a trip to and back from school!

And it is really more play for him than serious study. He is first to enter the gate and his toddlers’ room and he is also the first to leave to rush to show us his smile and his very good stick or mark he received from his teachers. First in, first out. Tiny as he may be for a two-year-old, he energetically runs after the colored balls in the room or dances to the tune of music played. He joins Lego parts together, he takes his seat for a while as he is instructed to draw but soon enough, he leaves his seat, continues to draw while standing!

At one wall of the school is Abraham Lincoln’s letter to his son’s teacher. Allow us to change certain portions as we dedicate this to our grandson DJ.

“It is all going to be strange and new to him for a while and we wish you would treat him gently. It is an adventure that might take him across continents. All adventures that probably include wars, tragedy and sorrow. To live this life will require faith, love and courage.

“So dear Teacher, will you please take him by his hand and teach him things he will have to know, teaching him – but gently, if you can, teach him that for every enemy, there is a friend. He will have to know that all men are not just, that all men are not true. But teach him also that for every scoundrel there is a hero, that for every crooked politician, there is a dedicated leader.

“In school, teacher, it is far more honorable to fail than to cheat. Teach him to learn how to gracefully lose, and enjoy winning when he does win.

“Teach him to be gentle with people, tough with tough people. Steer him away from envy if you can and teach him the secret of quiet laughter. Teach him if you can – how to laugh when he is sad, teach him there is no shame in tears. Teach him there can be glory in failure and despair in success.

“Teach him if you can the wonders of books, but also give time to ponder the extreme mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun and flowers on a green hill. Teach him to have faith in his own ideas, even if everyone tells him they are wrong.

“Try to give our grandson the strength not to follow the crowd when everyone else is doing it. Teach him to listen to everyone, but teach him also to filter all that he hears on a screen of truth and take only the good that comes through.

“Teach him never to put a price tag on his heart and soul. Let him have the courage to be impatient, let him have the patient to be brave. Teach him to have sublime faith in himself, because then he will always have sublime faith in mankind, in God.

“This is the order, teacher but see what best you can do. He is such a nice little boy” and he is our grandson, the son of our children.