MY granddaughter, age eight years, presented the following to me in writing, with respect to my last birthday, which registered that I had completed 64 years. “I love you grandfather;  64 is a great number. What a great grandfather you are. You are writing poems, being a teacher, writing stories that always begin with ‘Once upon a time’. You took care of me from since I was small. Your books are no ordinary books. They all begin with once upon a time and they are special because you wrote them.
“Your poems never did rhyme until you actually got a rhyming poem. I hope you love your card grandpa. Some people say bad things about old people, but no matter how old you get, or how many grey hairs you grow,  you are always my best and only grandfather I would always love.”
The child’s reference to rhyming poems and stories is in relation to my poems and stories usually sent to the Mirror’s Children’s Page.
As I read what the child wrote, with a heart of a grandfather, I valued her words, but with a heavy heart I wondered what future exists for her in a land where we expect wolves and lambs to have concord, where chaos is the agenda of so many.