A real question from my son...

A Black and White World

My six-year-old son David asked me the other day, 'Papá, when you were little was it black and white'? I quickly changed the subject because I didn't want to shoot-off some flip answer to a question asked in all seriousness. A question I wasn't sure I understood. I've spent nearly a week pondering that question and the situation in which it was asked. We were not watching television or working on the computer so those were eliminated. We were in the car, driving to the market. No clue there. As I feared, it was one of those almost unanswerable questions that our children pose to us. One of those questions that many, many years ago a much, much younger me would have dismissed as a silly question from a silly child. I'm not young now. The question made me think. And David is not a silly child. Those realizations made me really think. Was 'it' black and white when I was little? Was the world black and white? Was life black and white? I've been accused of that, seeing everything in black and white. Was he referring to that? Then I decided on my answer. It is a long answer, and one I am writing down first. I'll tell him the answer now and keep this for him to read later. Later, when he will understand it better.
David, yes, the world was black and white when I was little. And for a lot of people the world is still black and white. Color crept into my life gradually. One day at a time, one object at a time colors gradually became visible in my previously black and white world. My feeling loved brought color to my parents. The security of home brought color to our humble house. Feeling needed, relied upon, brought color to the barn and our farm animals. My need to explore brought color to the grasses, trees and flowers in the meadow, to the birds and the sky, to the pond and the frogs and the lily pads. A trip to town added colors to the trolley, the driver and his horse. The rich brown hue to the chestnuts on the courthouse lawn and the gray to the squirrels that collected them. There were the garish colors of the clowns and the lights and sounds brought color to the circus and the midway at the fair. Yes, sounds started bringing colors. Music crackled across the airwaves or spun out on the victrola and filled my heart with previously unfelt colors, the colors of music and stories. Stories that came on the same airwaves to fill my mind with the colors of the unseen cave hideaway of Straight Arrow, the dusky colors of the Inner Sanctum, those seen only by The Shadow or by Amos and Andy or The Cisco Kid and Pancho. There was also the work. For the longest time I thought work was black and white. I delivered newspapers and sold them too. They were all black and white. Then one day is if by a miracle I saw that the papers weren't black and white at all. They were filled with the colors of life and the world that I hadn't seen, told to me by someone that had seen. Had seen the colors. And when I looked, I found colors and worlds yet to be discovered in books. I looked up one day and saw the brightest yellow sun. And when I thought my world was totally colored, I found out how foolish I was. I had here-to-fore only seen pastels. Your Mamá really colored my world. Again I thought my world was all colored in. Colored in to the lines. Using every color in my box. Then, there you were.
I can't even begin to tell you how you colored my world. After you, came Jennifer, Gabriel and Rebeca. More and more color. But regardless of the others, you bring color to my life every day. You make me think and listen and see. You make me better and my life more colorful because of whom you are. I know you were worried when your teacher stopped giving you your 'Good Conduct' certificates. You had one for every day of your first month in school. She says you are different and that good conduct certificates are for the normal kids. Kids that are not good every day. Well, I've been around you more than she has. I know the color you bring to my life you have brought to her life as well. To everyone's lives. There are people in this world, a precious few people that bring color to the lives of everyone they meet. Birds sing when they come near and flowers bloom where they walked. You are part of that select few. And the colors, my God the colors you bring to my life. Papá/oz