Fwd: I Wish I use to Have a Unicorn

                                   I Wish I Use to Have a Unicorn


I have the luxury of day caring my very active and sometimes hot tempered four year old granddaughter.  A cute little curly haired, blond angel with more time-outs than the meanest hockey player in the whole universe. From giggles, hugs and kisses while sitting in my lap to BOOM!....standing alone in the bathroom thinking about what wrong she had done in less time than it takes to warm up 'Beefaroni'.  
The language she learns in pre-school!
After one such time-out, and a hug with a "I still love you very much" she told me of all the wishes that she would wish if Santa came to her house.
"Grandpa you know what?" ( this is how she starts every sentence, or, it's with a Grandpa look at this!)  "W   H   A    T ?"  I ask with the full knowledge that this is going to be an indefinite period of time that's filled the weirdest collection of rambling unconnected thoughts that all 4 yr. olds have wired on chocolate ( her mom's coming to pick her up in 5min. and this is how I get back at her for being a teenage girl).  "Grandpa you know what?"  (again)  "W    H    A    T    !" "Look at this!"
"Charlotte" ( in my best cautionary tone that portrays the fact that grandpa's had 10 hrs. of 'you know whats?' and 'look at this!' already today).
"I wish you and everybody else wouldn't get mad at me. And I wish I liked broccoli and going to bed when it's still light outside. And my biggest best wish is,....I wish I use to have a unicorn! A purple one that could fly so fast that......."
"I wish I use to have a unicorn?" I interrupted ( oh sure I wanted to tell her everybody wasn't mad at her, broccoli was good for her and how in the summer months the sun barely sets at this latitude. But, 'I wish I use to have a unicorn!') "A purple flying unicorn? And you've already given up on the idea of ever owning one? What quashed that dream?"
"GRANDPA, unicorns aren't real! But they use to be..."
"Mommy's here!" came the happy sing-song jingle coming up the stairs. Coat, boots, back-pack, tattered old blankie and two videos that shorten the day were all collected. Then with a hurried 'We'll see you tomorrow!'
All's quiet. All the noise, questions, guess what, look at this, hurried life and unconditional love exited the house. In its place the tick and tock of the old battery clock over the fireplace. And a small dog breathing a lot easier.
' I wish I use to have a unicorn', kept going over and over in my mind. At 4 yrs. old a dream has already died. The belief in, the hope of and the knowledge there never will be, has already come been and gone from my granddaughters life. For just a blink of an eye she could of had a unicorn. Purple and able to fly across that new field of dreams she had just started to cultivate. Virgin ground without the weeds of reality, that ruin many crops of our dreams. But at four years old the weeds have claimed the hope of a small girl, and her wish of ever owning a unicorn.
The wishes and hopes and dreams of our children are very special. They are the lucky few that can do, be, hope and try to have anything they want. It's up to us as adults to nurture their field of dreams. Protect it.
All to quick someone wants to enter that special area of their imagination and tell them they can't grow that in their environment. The unknowing older multitudes that know better, that kill young plants in early fields. Watch what your children watch, who they play and talk with. Be mindful of your conversation when they are in the room, and pick up your magazines. Young dreamers have big eyes and ears.
I sometimes wish our kids could grow up like most of us did, without the computer. Childhood mysteries that dad and mom would answer at an appropriate date are now solved over at Billy's house on his computer when his mom goes to the mall. I rather enjoyed my constantly incorrect childhood knowledge changing from week to week and friend to friend about girls, cars and what chemicals under the kitchen sink will burn.
Did I mention girls?  
It all depended on which friend had the older brother that bragged about how much he knew for sure about girls and  life. And then through the process of time was proven wrong again and again.
"Tommy's brother said there's no Santa! But then again he said girls can become boys at birth if a mom or dad blew really hard in their mouths."
Santa lived on to die another day.
Dreams were harvested then replanted, harvested and sometimes replanted again. A crop of dreams took many years to mature and harvest. I had many fields of dreams and wishes in those years. Now most those fields are harvested and bare. Age does that.
'I wish I use to have a unicorn' haunts me.
I wish she still wished she could have a unicorn.

Bob Niles