Build

The little boy I used to nanny for confessed his love one day…. 

for Legos. 

He told me, “I love Legos so much I never want to stop playing with them.”

And he meant it with every cell in his body. 

We weren’t in the middle of a conversation- he didn’t even look up at me. He placed his arm on the table, rested his head on top of it, stared at the pieces he was moving around with his other hand… and expressed his I-just-can’t-hold-it-in love. “I love Legos so much, I never want to stop playing with them.”

It was so pure, I didn’t know what to do but to pause with it. To just witness that kind of love. I didn’t know what to say.

My initial reaction was to affirm how awesome that was- I wanted to tell him, “YES, that’s how it should be!” But that didn’t feel right— he already knew that. He didn’t need me affirming him or telling him anything. And realizing that he surely knew far more than I did.. about love; about simplicity; about being; about play— I decided the only appropriate response would be a question.
Please kid, tell me more.

“I love hearing that. Why do you love them so much?”
And he responded, “I like that I can build things with them.”

I thought, There we go. I’ve got him pinned. Now this is making sense. The love. The passion. The need, to… play. It’s for a reason. He wants to build something. Something in particular. He likes to build something specific… 
And I was so excited to find out what.

So I asked. “What do you like to build?”

And without hesitation, without thought, and again without looking up from the table, he responded…
“I just like to build.”

 …I shut up after that.

He wasn’t trying to shut me up- he was honestly and openly answering my question. He just likes to build. And I heard him. That’s all that needed to be said.

I decided it was best if I just put my head down and build, too. I didn’t know what I was building… or how. But I knew the pieces would stick together and that’s really all that mattered. You know, in building. 

He was right anyway— the building was enough. Nothing more, nothing less. It was what it was. Our hearts said build… so we built.