Choices
The wooden brick tower stands firm
Child and I are about to play
I explain the game
“We need to take a block from here and place it here,
without knocking the tower down”
I run a finger over the wooden blocks, smoothly, slowly, gently
Child watches
“It’s like making choices,” I explain
“It’s best to check out the options
Carefully, slowly”
As my finger moves a block responds, it shifts just enough
Child catches breath
What might happen if I make that choice?
Slowly the block is encouraged from its place in the stack
and added to the top layer
“Sometimes the right thing to do is really clear”
Child nods understanding
Turnabout
Child follows adult in the same way
Uncertain as the brick moves
Gently, gently, the decision is made
The deed done
I speak soft again
“Making the right choices doesn’t stop bad things from happening”
Child eyes meet mine
“It’s sad when bad things happen
and bad things do happen to good people”
We play on in a study of breathless pauses, choices, risk taking
Until the stack is honeycombed and no easy option remains
I speak soft again
“Sometimes, the decision is not so easy
We have to choose to do nothing
or to do the next best thing
even though it’s risky and might get messy”
I remove a brick that has others resting upon it
the whole stack wobbles
But it holds
Child hesitates
I’ve made the game harder to play
Making tough decisions is something mature people have to do
What we want to do and what is right, are not always the same thing
Child presses a brick
The whole tower shifts
The move is abandoned
We both giggle nervously
Another is completed successfully
My turn is not
The crash is deafening, shocking, but also exciting
Together we rebuild the tower
“Of course this is just a game and we can rebuild it
Not all crashes are so easy to put right
Especially when they are wrong choices made in the wrong way”
I tell of the girl who hit another with a hockey stick, too high, too hard,
It broke her knee cap.
She had been a promising dancer but after being hit that way
She never danced again
No sorry could fix that
“It wasn’t an accident,
There was anger behind the hit
A choice was made,
The wrong choice made in the wrong way
The injury stayed forever
So did Regret
When we really try our best,
Follow the rules as best we can,
Stick to what we know to be right,
When we treat others the way we’d like to be treated
We stay whole and complete inside
It’s called Integrity”
Child knows anger
Child knows wrong choices
Child knows better now
The seed is sown
We must wait for deeper roots
We build another tower
Play another game
Words and pictures © Denise Stanford
Within the Vine 