I Don’t Want to be Grown up

This story happened about seven years ago. I visited my parents in Solo, so it was time to meet my younger sister’s family too. Anik, my younger sister, had been married and had 3 sons. Her oldest son, Ian, was on the second grade of primary school. He was too skinny. Anik told me for Ian many kinds of food did not appetizing. She had tried many kinds of food and appetizer, but it didn’t help. ‘Do tell him something that increase his appetite..’, Anik begged me. I promised her I would try. One afternoon, Ian was playing with my son, Akbar. I joined them. ‘Ian have I told you story of a man that never growing taller? He was shorter than a table’s leg as long as his life…’ Ian and Akbar started to pay attention to my words. ‘Why, auntie?’ Ian asked. ‘Because really it was the stomach that play important job. The stomach acted just like a pump. When it was filled it will pump our body to grow taller and bigger. The short man I told you had very flat stomach, it never been filled enough so the pump didn’t work and he stayed short, never taller and bigger. Do you know how to fill the stomach?’. Akbar shouted, ‘I know mom, with food and milk’. ‘It’s true honey, what kind of food do you like Ian?’, I asked him. ‘I don’t like rice, I don’t like porridge, I don’t like noodles, I like choco milk, I like candy, I don’t like banana, I don’t like oranges, I like ice cream….what else?’…He looked like thinking. ‘Come here Ian, let me see your stomach. Hmm… it’s very flat, let me see closer, hmm I know it had been filled with choco milk, ice cream…but it still too flat. Stand here, you know that Akbar is one year younger than you, but you are now as tall as Akbar. You should be taller than him. Try to fill your stomach with more and many kind of food, honey, you’ll see you’ll grow taller and bigger. I heard that you want to be a basketball player, didn’t you? You’ll be a great basket ball player when you’re taller than your daddy. You want to grow up, taller and bigger, don’t you? So try to eat many kind of food more, honey…OK?’. He said slowly, ‘OK auntie, but……’. ‘But what Ian?’ I asked him. ‘Auntie I think I really don’t want to grow up. When I grow up and taller than my daddy I know daddy gonna be older. He’s old now and I don’t want daddy to be older to soon, die to soon’. His answer for a while amaze me, but then make me smile and laugh. Eddy, Ian’s daddy, age about 34 has hair that almost white of grey. Maybe it was some kind of heredity for his brother’s hair had full of grey too in his mid 30. His daddy’s grey made Ian didn’t want to grow up. You see, sometimes we can not imagine what is in the mind of little children. Today, Ian is in t 3 rd grade of junior high school. He is healthy, taller than his daddy, and has a big appetite. His daddy’s hair had been painted in dark brown too.