For Neighborkids, Love Comes Easily

What I Learned Over Winter Vacation - PART I

Today, as our neighborkids head back to school after the holidays, I have a moment to reflect on what I learned with and from them over the past two weeks.   This was the first time since August, when summer ended and the school year began, that we had a chance to spend an extended period of time all together as neighbors.   Although we weren’t scavenger-hunting in the “traditional” sense, there were still plenty of opportunities to explore how we might increase our sense of connection with one another and our sense of belonging in this particular patch of Sarasota that we call “home.” As usual, the neighborkids’ wisdom-in-action was spilling out all over the place - it was just a matter of paying close enough attention…

Love Comes Easily…

One thing that I noticed, time and again, was how much the neighborkids naturally express love.  Maybe the holiday season amplifies this in all of us, but wow, I could really feel it among the kids…

I am remembering how Holly warmly welcomed Tanaysia back to the neighborhood when she returned from her school-year home with her dad out west to stay with her mom for two weeks.  Soon they were coloring, playing dress-up, chatting and hugging like the best of friends. 

 

I am remembering Rashad’s big-hearted greeting of grown-up puppy Gus when we zipped down Central Avenue and dropped by to visit the kids on his block.  “Here Gus, have one of my peanut-butter crackers!  Have another!” he insisted.  Gus of course loved them, tail wagging like crazy as he gobbled them up.  And when I mentioned that we probably ought to hold off on giving Gus anymore crackers since he’d been eating all sorts of stuff that afternoon, Rashad insisted that I take a whole pack, and save it for Gus for later, when we got home.  

 

I am remembering our first round of Christmas caroling on the block, when a few kids scrambled to be the designated gingerbread delivery crew – the ones to hand out tinfoil-wrapped gingerbread that fellow neighborkids had baked the night before.  When Deandre, who was not part of the gingerbread crew, saw what fun the other kids were having sharing with neighbors, he asked if he could give neighbors the lantern and holiday decorations he was carrying.  Dushun overheard him and immediately recognized what he was really trying to say, responding, “Here, Deandre, you can have some of this gingerbread to share.”  And then, when we came to a house where no one was home, Dushun insisted that we still leave for them a piece of gingerbread on the doorstep, as a secret surprise.   As far as Dushun was concerned, just because they weren’t home was no reason not to share! 

I am remembering when one of the littlest carolers, 3-year-old Quentin, got knocked over in all of the excitement and started crying, “I want my mommy!”  Since his mom was not along on the adventure, I asked his cousin Tanaysia what she could do to comfort him, since he knew her best.  Tanaysia launched into a tender rendition of “Rock-a-bye-baby,” and one of the older boys who had accidently knocked Quentin over comforted him as well, saying, “It’s okay.  Jesus loves you.” 

I am remembering when the D’s came tumbling in one evening after receiving the latest report on their newborn sister, still in the NICU.  “Miss Allison, we gotta pray,” they announced, and moments later we were all sitting around the kitchen table, hands held, heads bowed, with heartfelt prayers offered up by each child asking God to keep watch over baby Oschonna and bring her home soon. 

And I am remembering all the impromptu love notes that kids wrote and left around the house – notes slid under the front door, scattered on the counter, and on some occasions delivered face-to-face, with such earnesty. 

  

Love seems to come so easily to little ones, and that is no small thing.  As psychiatrists Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini and Richard Lannon wrote in their book A General Theory of Love, “where intellect and emotion clash, the heart often has the greater wisdom,” and “as individuals and as a culture, our chance for happiness depends on our ability to decipher a hidden world that revolves – invisibly, improbably, inexorably – around love.”  Kids are tuned into it.  Just last month, the New York Times published an article headlined, “We May Be Born With an Urge to Help,” reporting that developmental science now confirms that children – actually, babies as young as 12 months – demonstrate a natural tendency to be sociable and help others (in other words, to be loving) before they are ever taught to do so.  

For kids, it comes naturally.  

I admire our neighborkids for their willingness to keep showing us how.