GRAND MASTER LUKA

Little Luka is the grand master teacher of all times.  He was with us all day yesterday.  He's two years old plus a couple of months now, a nuclear reactor of energy and the embodiment of insatiable curiosity.  He learns, learns, learns, never stops learning, and his learning is not only wonderful to watch, it teaches me to learn along with him.  Then, too, he's a hundred percent attentive to whatever happens to be occupying him at any given moment--and at the next moment he'll be a hundred percent attentive to something else.  Talk about being in the present!

So in many ways he's a perfect model for how to live in the moment.  In others, he's a constant challenge to the limits of my own patience and compassion.  More dauntingly, he's a perfect mirror for my imperfections--my petulance and propensity to sudden anger, my demand for the instant satisfaction of my whims.  Like me, he leaves messes in his wake, and is reluctant to tidy up.  Like me, he tires easily of one object of attention and moves on restlessly to the next.  Like me, he must always be doing something, and finds it difficult to come to rest.  Like me, he clings on to his "stuff" and gets annoyed when his possession of it is questioned or threatened.  I don't literally scream and yell and stamp my feet, but I sure manage to get the message across when the mood takes me!

This little guy never stops learning, never stops teaching.  Luka, the greatest gift a grandfather could wish for!