I was in the kitchen with the children and my Mum. Wiktor was sitting at the table reading a book, Aliya was cuddling me while sitting on my lap, Marcel was lying on the floor, and Mum was tidying up the countertop. I was telling my mum something when suddenly Marcel joined the conversation:

“Because anger created this kind of gate through which love can’t pass.”

“And how can you open the gate?” Mum asked.

“I don’t know really. Maybe you need to throw the anger in the bin.”

“If we throw it in the bin, it’ll get even angrier, grow twice as big, and eventually explode! Maybe we could hug it? Love might be able to break through the gate then,” I suggested.

“Or perhaps, if anger were hugged, it might open the gate by itself,” Mum added.

“You just have to feel,” Aliya concluded.

At that moment, Wiktor lifted his head from his book and said,

“I think silence helps.”

A shiver ran through my body.

“And how does it help?” Mum asked, equally struck by the power of his words.

“Because when it’s quiet, the anger just melts away,” Wiktor explained calmly.

After a moment, Mum asked him another question,

“All right, but imagine Janek (one of his favourite friends) is here and he smashes your tractor with one kick. That big Lego Technic one with the trailer that you spent three days building. You feel enormous anger! So much anger that you’d even want to hit Janek! What do you do with that anger?”

“I go to Mum, and we do what we always do.”

“And what do you always do?”

“They open the gate!” Marcel shouted.

“And how do you open it?” Mum asked, clearly moved.

“We hug, close our eyes, feel the anger in the body, and breathe,” Wiktor replied.

“And then the anger goes away?”

“Yes,” he confirmed, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “Then I’d just pick up the pieces of Lego that Janek smashed.”