A Lone Ranger Moment

At my parents' house a couple of weekends ago, I observed from inside the house, with some sadness, my son standing outside watching a group of kids playing happily and noisily outside next door at a birthday party. He had been playing by himself looking for insects using his toy yellow rake, and just stood there watching. He made no attempt to join them - he just stood silently and watched them play. After a few minutes of this, I invited him inside for a snack.

I've written before of the profound sense of love and empathy that parents feel for their children, and that most parents would gladly take pain and suffering on behalf of their children. So to build off that previous concept, I'd say that a parent would take pain on suffering on behalf of their child - and there's something about loneliness and separation which epitomizes the very worst sort of pain and suffering. The combination of those two premises makes for an interesting observation going into Good Friday - where we reflect upon One who died in the place of others, and hung on the cross alone as all his disciples abandoned him. Hmm...

When I mentioned the episode to Sarah and how I felt bad for Daniel, she observed that I might very well be wrongly assuming Daniel's emotions or sentiment. Or more to the point, I had assumed that he had a sense of longing to join in and play with the kids and felt sad that he couldn't, where the reality could've been that he was simply curious but really had no interest in playing with this kids.

That hypothesis has some legs, as Daniel can be very solitary when it comes to playtime. I suppose there's some balance there, but what I've observed is that he'll be happy to play with others so long as he's interested in the game or activity at hand. If he's not interested - and he tends to be very particular about what he wants to do at a given time - he'll simply opt to play by himself. For example, at a recent Bible Study, some of the other kids were playing tag and he was given an explicit invitation by one of them to join and play, but Daniel declined and proceeded to the playroom to set up some trains by himself. Now if some kids decided to join him to play with the trains, he'd happily have the company, but he'd be just as fine without it.

I'd like for Daniel to be able to appreciate the joy of being with other people, and that these relationships are ultimately richer than the activities themselves. It's sort of like the saying, "I'm here for the company" which is my quip when I'm with with my wife or friends either eating a restaurant I detest or doing an activity I abhor. The point being that it doesn't really matter what the activity at hand is; the important thing is that I'm spending time with those whom I love - that's what make the experience rich. It's what makes life rich.