My granddaughter, the nine-year-old going on forty-nine, told me today that she was not dreaming about changing the world, that she was going to change the world.
I honestly believe that she will. While she sees the world around her changing, I see her adapting readily to meet the challenges her new world has been preparing her for.
What I realized today is that every conversation, every new discovery, everything I help support both of my granddaughters with, will help me share in their tomorrow’s.
After arriving at their home this weekend for the Thanksgiving holiday, I was sitting watching CNN with them. The continuing saga about the election was one of the segments (it was the entire theme of Anderson Cooper’s broadcast). I noticed that no one spoke about the outcome of where we are and where we will be and the impact this impasse will have on our nation in twenty years or beyond.
I think we are all so afraid of what that reality might be. Yet, while all the back and forth was going on during that broadcast, my nine-year old was telling me how she was going to change the world.
Nothing she heard was a deterrent. Nothing she heard about COVID, the election results, the lawsuits, or impending doom of not having a smooth transition, swayed how she saw all her tomorrows.
As I looked on at her, I thought about that. If I was honest, I realized that it had not deadened my ideology about all our tomorrows either. I am just as hopeful today as I was when Barack Obama took office.
What I know, like what my granddaughters know, is that no one can take your dreams away from you…nor can they persuade you not to set your intentions to change the world.
After dinner, as I listened to the nine-year old chatter with her friends via Zoom, I heard the laughter of little girls and boys still choosing their tomorrows…today. The skills they have gained today, such as problem-solving, manifesting hope, laughter, love, relationship building, understanding and even listening, were all on display on that Zoom call.
As I continued to listen to their conversations about school and homework and the latest games, what I heard gave me hope that no temper tantrum from adults acting out “king of the hill” can stop them from choosing the tomorrows they envision for themselves.
For all that is going wrong, it took a group of nine-year old kids, to remind me that no amount of fear, anger, hate, injustice, or racism, can destroy our hope
In the middle of our darkest hour, a group of nine-year old’s have restored my hope.
Today, we can begin to renew our hope and fight back for our tomorrows. Today we can remember that hope, faith, and love are not only necessary, but they are the only tools that can lead us into tomorrow.
This Thanksgiving will be a challenge for many of us. Traditions will be broken. Yet, new traditions will be made. Families will not celebrate together. Yet, those that you are with, can be celebrated.
This one thing I know, by watching this nine-year old I have learned that this crisis can bring out the best in us…if we let it.
This crisis can bring out our hope for tomorrow…if we let it. This crisis can help grow us into the better versions of ourselves, and if we allow it share all of our tomorrow’s together.
And That’s A Brilliant Glimpse of Insight.