There were 3 children; one boy Todd and two little girls Alice and Amy, age nine and ten. Alice was from a large family and they were happy, but mum and dad both worked hard and gave Alice and her brothers and sisters lots of nice things but Alice had to compete for her parents’ time and attention, she knew she was loved and cared for and had everything she could ask for but she always had to be good so her busy parents didn’t get cross with her.
Amy was the daughter of a lady who made jewellery and taught children to play piano, so she was home most of the time, her dad worked part time as a surveyor for a property company so they were pretty well off, but they lived in a little house in the country where they had some animals and a garden that grew most of their food Amy and her sister helped. There was such a feeling of happiness when they were all at home laughing and working together she knew her family loved her.
Todd’s dad had left when he was a baby, his mum had remarried and he had two younger step brothers. His mum was a cleaner and worked two different jobs, his step dad worked in the factory but when he finished work he always called into the pub with his mates on the way home. Todd was expected to help his mum and look after his younger siblings because of the age difference. One was two and the other was four. Todd seemed to get the blame for everything; he felt that no matter what he done he was never right. He knew his mum loved him but she was always so tired.
Lying on the grass; it was a bright sunny day, the sky was blue and every now and then a big fluffy cloud would drift by. They were playing the game of saying what they saw, the first cloud was big and round, the first girl called Alice said that she saw big candy floss on a stick! Her friend Amy said she saw a big marshmallow planet with unicorns dancing in a line! Todd the boy said he saw a monster with large teeth ready to gobble them up!
The next cloud floated by and Alice could see a pretty dress with high heeled shoes, Amy could see a beautiful lady with a wand granting wishes and Todd could see his step dads hand with the index finger waving, telling him off for not remembering to clean the car. Another cloud drifted by and Amy gushed I can see a large cruise boat drifting by and lots of people all singing and dancing and enjoying themselves! Alice saw the new car that she was hoping her dad would buy so that they didn’t have to drive around in the old car that made her feel uncomfortable when her friends saw her dad leave her to school! and Todd said he could really see anything in the cloud except that there seemed to be lots of dark spaces, maybe it looked a bit like a bus with darkened windows, but it was wrecked it must have crashed somewhere! Amy turned to Todd and said “oh Todd you never see anything nice in the clouds like Alice and me”.
The clouds were all the same but all three children saw them so totally different, life is like the clouds it’s not what is there but the way we see it that makes the difference, so the more we can step out of the drama and the happier that we decide to be, the more we will see that reflected back to us.
