29 Oct A Possibility to Try On
With Halloween only a few days away, a little boy was getting some extra use out of his lion costume. He sat in the child seat at the front of a red plastic Target cart, zipped into the tawny suit, the shaggy mane framing his face. His tail poked through the basket as his mother pushed him past the shelves.
He looked tired of shopping.
“I don’t want to be here,” he said grumpily. “I want to go home.”
A woman nearby was stocking shelves as they passed. She glanced over at him.
“Well, this is certainly good news,” she said. “I’m glad there’s a lion watching over our store!”
The boy turned toward her and roared.
Maybe the first roar was one more way of saying he’d had enough. But as his mother pushed him through the aisles, he roared again, and then again, his voice reaching ahead of the cart. The store had become a place where a lion was needed.
Her passing remark became an invitation, opening a small place for him to help shape what happened next. It offered him a possibility to try on, and he chose to step into it.
What a sweet reminder that someone can wish they were somewhere else and still find a way to take part in the moment they’re in.