There’s a little people trick I do on a regular basis. I look into your face and I try to see the little you. I do this in all sorts of situations but mostly if someone is frustrating me.  (How’s that for total honesty?) There’s something about trying to see the little person inside the big person that softens my heart, and I remember precisely when I started this practice.

I was a young mother with two small children. For a few magical years, both of my sisters lived here in my small northeast Louisiana town. We spent many afternoons congregated up at Mama’s, visiting and running after our combined broods– six children under four, two per sister. (Rhonda would go on to break the pattern and add a third child but not until she had moved to Texas.) For a little while, those days were also enriched by the presence of Papaw Stone, my mother’s father. Papaw had moved in with my parents after Grandma Stone died, and in the mysterious way that happens with so many couples who’ve been married for most of their lives, he didn’t live much longer himself. However, that brief season combined with the young married child rearing days of my life and produced some of my most treasured memories.

To be clear, our visits weren’t always Hallmark card fodder. Papaw was suffering from kidney failure and other health issues. By that time in his life, his nerves weren’t the best. Sometimes he got tense around a houseful of wild young-uns and it would be up to us to create a buffer zone and make sure the kids played outdoors. Still, for the most part, Papaw and his great grands were big buddies. I loved seeing my children interact with him, loved hearing him tell them stories, loved seeing their soft little hands in his aged ones.

Papaw was a retired preacher, but he had never retired from storytelling.  He was full of “I remember when” stories, and most of the tales came from the years when he felt like a game changer in life instead of a spectator. Watching Papaw depend on my mother was my first up close look at how it must feel to age. I had known Papaw when he was stronger and more capable. It wasn’t hard to remember that Papaw when the new one chaffed at being told he could no longer drive.  One day I looked into his face and tried to imagine what my grandfather must have been like as a little boy. It changed our dynamics that afternoon, and it led to a discovery and a practice I continue today.

Thinking of people as the little kids they once were can change the way you look at a person. It’s like their exteriors, however tough they may be, almost melt away before your eyes. Think about it this way, it’s easy to love children, right? Well, everyone has hopes, dreams, and plans when they’re young. Some fulfill them, others live with regrets. Spending a moment trying to imagine that grumpy stranger standing in line with me at the store as a wide-eyed child in the most innocent, impressionable, trusting time of his or her life, before living itself started leaving marks on their souls, this softens my response to whatever adult behavior or attitude is getting under my skin. And yes, the trick works with relatives. Bonus? You usually have old photographs to aid the exercise! (Not that all of my people aren’t perfectly precious! *grin*)

My “see ’em little” trick doesn’t work every time, but it works often enough that the practice has become a healthy way of thinking I wanted to pass along. It’s yours now. Let me know what you do with it.