Tag: children

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What if?

I actually started crying when I first read this on Facebook. I immediately shared it on my feed but felt to say more about it here.

What first touched my heart was imagining how the world would be if all teachers had this understanding and routinely offered this kind of support to the children in their care.

But then I found myself thinking, what about our workplaces? What about our homes?

If your family is experiencing difficulties at home, I would like to provide additional support at work. I understand that you are not always able to share details and that’s okay. If your wife/husband/adult child is coming to work after a difficult night, morning or weekend, please text me “Handle with Care”. Nothing else will be said or asked. This will let me know that your wife/husband/adult child may need extra time, patience, or help during the day.

OR…

If my wife/husband/adult child is experiencing difficulties at work, I would like to provide additional support at home. I understand that you are not always able to share details and that’s okay. If my wife/husband/adult child is coming home after a difficult day, please text me “Handle with Care”. Nothing else will be said or asked. This will let me know that my wife/husband/adult child may need extra time, patience, or help during the night or over the weekend.

OR EVEN…what about ourselves?

If I am experiencing difficulties at work or at school or at home, I would like to provide myself additional support within. I understand that I may not always be able to deal with details and that’s okay. If I’m trying to cope after a difficult day, night, or weekend, please God, help me remember to “Handle with Care”. Nothing else need be said or asked. This will remind me that I may need extra time, patience, or help.

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Old friends

Today we spent time with Dudo and Karin, a wonderful couple who have been a big part of Ramesha’s life for decades. They were some of the first people I felt close to when I moved to Lugano, despite the fact that we couldn’t speak one another’s language.

Ramesha and I got together in 2003, the same year that Samuele, their first child was born (Lia arrived in 2005). Now here we are, visiting them in 2019, and I couldn’t stop staring at Samuele, who’s done a whole lot of growing up in the past two years!

So Dudo and I were reflecting on the importance of true friends, and of the kind of friendship where you see each other after two years of living on opposite sides of the world (with hardly any contact in the meantime) and it feels as though it was only a couple of days since you were last together.

And what we realized is that this is why it comes as such a shock to see how children have grown, because it’s the measurable changes we see in them that makes the passage of time real for us.