Two Little Boys Touch My Heart

27 January 2012 Written by Lois Hjelmstad 2 Comments

On a recent Sunday morning after church, six-year-old Derek shyly touched my hand and said, “Hi.”

[Derek and his friend Andrew were members of a Sunday school class that I had “grandmothered” when they were aged three, four, and five. I hadn’t been sure Derek even recognized me until the day in the second year that he sidled over from the far side of the pew in front of me until he knelt directly in my line of vision. He grinned, “You’ve met me before!”

Every third Sunday or so I treated the children in that class to chocolate covered almonds. One day Andrew told his mother that he didn’t like the chocolates, but he sure liked Grandma Lois. From then on I brought gummies.]

I looked down at Derek, “Well, let me sit here and we’ll have a little chat.” I asked how he was and what had been going on in his life. Then Derek pulled his hand from behind his back and gave me a wooden cutout man, painted the orange and blue of the Denver Broncos, to stick on my refrigerator. On the back he had printed “To Grandma Lois From Derek.”

Soon Andrew came running up to us and extended a paper bird with blue tissue-paper wings and googly-eyes. He wanted to write on the back of his present, too.

We shared great big hugs and they ran along. My day was made. And you can bet those two precious gifts cling to the fridge in the kitchen and hang from the ceiling of my office.