What Comes First Is “Love,” and Lessons Follow — What My Grandchild Taught Me in New Zealand April 21, 2026

Kanon

For a long time,
Golf felt like a sport from a distant world to me.

Something for adults with plenty of money and time.
Something that had almost nothing to do with the life my husband and I had lived.

And yet, for my seven-year-old grandson living in
New Zealand,
it was simply one of his after-school activities.

More than that—
it was something he wanted to do, something he genuinely looked forward to.

One day, I walked the full nine holes with him.

At the first tee shot, I expected a miss.
Instead, he struck the ball cleanly. It flew much farther than I imagined.

On the next shot, the ball fell into a sandy hollow—a bunker.
It wouldn’t come out easily. He hit four, five times.

Yet he didn’t frown.
He didn’t cry.
He didn’t give up.

He simply continued until the ball came out.

Even near the green, the ball wandered here and there before reaching the cup.
Still, his expression stayed bright.

Walking beside him, I realized something.

He wasn’t enjoying golf because he was good at it.
He kept going because he loved it.

He had just moved up to a higher class, where the other children were slightly older and more skilled.
Yet he did not seem intimidated. He simply played at his own pace.

On the day of a tournament, he received a prize.
I never quite understood why.

He was told he could choose a practice tool that looked like an umbrella,
and he ran to pick it out himself.

Even after returning home, he practiced swinging it.

It was not that he wanted to become better at golf.
It was that he loved the time spent playing it.

⸻

There is another memory I cannot forget.

Last October, my grandson spent one month attending a Japanese elementary school as a trial student.

There, for the first time, he encountered a
Melodica (keyboard harmonica).

He played “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” and it seems to have delighted him deeply.

When he came home, he excitedly talked about his day and tapped the melody out on the desk with his fingers, trying to recreate it.

“Did someone lend you one?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

I suddenly felt sorry for him.
When I learned that this lesson would continue, I hurried to buy one for him. He was overjoyed.

But the instrument could not be taken back to New Zealand because of luggage limits.
This time, we brought it with us.

And then, I heard that he himself had said,
“I want to learn the piano.”

That small encounter with the melodica had quietly led him to the piano.

⸻

Golf and piano—these two stories share something important.

It was not that adults decided, “We want him to learn this.”

His own sense of love came first.

In Japan, lessons often begin from an adult’s wish:
“I want my child to acquire this skill.”

In New Zealand, it seemed different.
When a child shows strong interest, the adults say,
“Shall we help you try this?”

The order is reversed.

Make them take lessons → They might come to like it.
They like it → Lessons begin.

For one month, without sightseeing, simply living inside the house,
I was able to witness several of these “beginnings.”

He continues because he loves it.
He does not quit, even when things go poorly.
No one tells him to practice at home—he simply does.

I was allowed to watch that figure for the length of nine holes.

Golf, once a distant sport to me,
felt very close within my grandson’s daily life.

A small experience with a melodica
opened the door to the piano.

Children may be geniuses at discovering what they love.

And perhaps adults are simply there
to gently support the growth of that love.

That is what my grandson taught me.

⸻

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