Playing with My Little Girl

A few days ago it was the weekend, and it was raining. I couldn’t take my daughter out, so I had to keep her entertained. First we decided to make pizza together. We laughed as we chopped the toppings. I was happy because she was happy. After dinner I asked if she wanted to play before bed or watch a cartoon. She said she wanted to play Jenga: you stack wooden blocks like a tower, gently pull them out one by one and put them on top, and whoever knocks down the tower on their turn loses. We played a few rounds. Every time, she knocked it over with her own hand and laughed until she was helpless. I thought she liked losing on purpose. After a while I got tired and said, “That’s enough now, sweetheart. You have to go to sleep.” She said, “No. We have to keep playing until I win.” I looked at her. We kept going, and in the third round my hand shook and the tower fell. I expected her to laugh. Instead she looked at me, yawned, and said, “I’ve won now. I’m sleepy. Let’s go to bed.” It took my breath away. What a lesson from such a tiny child. She showed me that she could laugh at losing instead of getting upset and crying, and she didn’t give up. When I said we were done, she said no, the game would go on until she won. And when she did win, she calmly said it was time to get on with life. Why do we grown-ups make our troubles and failures so huge that they humiliate us? And why do we treat a single success as the end of everything and forget to go on living? Above all, why do we lose heart after a few defeats and stop playing? My fellow Iranian, my dear one, my friend, a piece of my own flesh… Strength comes down to nothing but believing in ourselves… Long live an Iran whose new generations are ready to bring back the best of it. Long live the Shah.