Straight Talk from Jerry

Jerry gnawed on his unlit cigarette. “Life can be hard, don’t make it harder than it needs to be.”

“Papa, why you say hard?” Stella twisted her finger in her hair.

“It’s how we look at things. It’s not easy to learn new things. It’s hard, but that’s okay. Everything shouldn’t be easy.” 

Stella smiles. "I like easy."

"Everybody likes things easy, but we need challenges. It helps make us better at dealing with problems. We get soft, when everything is too easy."

"Soft like this?" Stella holds up her pillow.

"No, a different kind of soft. When you we're learning to walk, you fell down a lot. Sometimes it hurt, but you got up and did it again, because learning to walk was important to you. It was a challenge and it was hard, but now you know how to walk. If someone would have caught every time you fell, learning would have taken longer. Learning to get up after you fall is part of walking.

"Papa, you talk a lot."

“Yes, sorry sometimes I forget you’re only three. There’s just a bunch of things I want you to know.”

Stella scrunched her face. “It’s okay to fall?”

Jerry laughs. “Yes, that sums it up.”