We were just walking, hand in hand, the way grandmothers and little granddaughters do. The day was mild, the sky wide and blue, and her tiny fingers wrapped around mine with the kind of trust that softens your soul.

“Nanna,” she said, looking up with a grin that could melt clouds, “Would you like to skip with me?”

And there it was — the invitation. Not to a party, not to a grand event, but to joy. Pure, unfiltered joy. The kind only a three-year-old can offer without thinking twice.

My knees hesitated. My hips whispered Let’s not. But my heart? My heart took off like a kite.

So I tried.

I skipped — well, more of a hop-limp-giggle shuffle — but to her, it was perfect. She laughed like bells ringing, skipping happily beside me, and the years simply melted away. For a moment, I was a girl too — skipping down gravel driveways, blonde hair flying, full of stories and scraped knees. Once upon a time, skipping came as easily to me as breathing.

But today, I skip slower. Still, somehow, her little hand lifted me.

She is a ray of sunshine with legs — one of those golden beams that break through trees and touch everything with wonder. On our walk, she said hello to strangers, to birds and to flowers. She called everyone her friend. And do you know what happened? People smiled. Even the grumpy-looking ones. Her joy was contagious.

I watched her, my sweet little granddaughter — so full of wonder and life — and thought how the world needs more invitations like hers to skip. More skipping, more hand-holding, more smiling, more asking someone older and slower, “Would you like to skip with me? Would you like to join me in enjoying life?”

So, I skipped. Not because it was easy. But because she asked. Because that tiny hand reached out for mine and reminded me that joy isn’t about perfection — it’s about participation.

And maybe that’s what getting older is really about. Not giving up the things we used to do, but finding new ways to do them — slower, softer, perhaps — but with the same open heart. Life may crease our skin and stiffen our joints, but let us not forget how to play, how to laugh without reason, how to say yes to skipping. Let us not grow so old that we forget the wonder of simply being alive, of feeling the breeze on our cheeks and hearing our laughter mingle with a child’s.

Once upon a time, I was the granddaughter — and I was the one offering the invitation. I remember slipping my hand into my grandmother’s, asking her to play, to dance, to skip. Back then, I thought she was the wise one, the giver of everything. And she was. But now, all these years later, I finally understand what she meant when she’d say, “You children give me so much — you keep me young.”
Now I know. Because now I feel it.

So, if you happened to see a wobbly-legged nanna skipping down a footpath, holding hands with a little 3-year-old, both laughing like little girls — it might have been me.

And next time you get an invitation to skip again, do say yes.
It’s a marvellous feeling!