What My Grandson Taught Me About Purpose

What My Grandson Taught Me About Purpose

We were preparing for a hard day. A sad church service was coming up for our family — the kind of day where everyone moves a little slower, where grief sits quietly in the room even before anyone has said a word.

Discussing what the day will look like, a few days before, my grandson said, simply, "I'm lighting a candle."

He said it with such intention. Not asking permission, not unsure of himself — he said it like a fact, like something he knew to be true. And it stopped me. Here was a small boy who already understood exactly what his part was.

Everyone had a role that day. Each one mattered. His was to light the candle. That was his contribution — his, and no one else's.

What struck me most was how free that felt. He didn't have to invent his part or wonder if it was enough. It was given to him. He simply had to show up and do it, with his whole heart.

I think a lot of us have forgotten how good that feels.

We're wired to want purpose

Somewhere along the way, many of us start to believe that purpose has to be big — a career, a calling, something we chase down and prove ourselves worthy of. But watching my grandson, I was reminded that purpose can also be small and specific and offered. A candle. A seat saved for someone. A hand held at the right moment.

Psychologists talk often about how a sense of purpose is tied closely to wellbeing — that people who feel they have a role to play, a reason to show up, tend to cope better with hard seasons of life. It's not about the size of the task. It's about knowing your part matters and that someone is counting on you to do it.

Being part of something is its own kind of medicine

There's something quietly healing about being included — about being handed a role in a moment that's bigger than any one person. Grief, especially, can make us feel isolated, like we're carrying something alone. But when everyone has a job, even a small one, it stitches people back together. My grandson wasn't just lighting a candle. He was participating in something. He was needed.

That's the thing about intention and purpose: they don't ask to be dramatic. They just ask to be real.

A question for you

I've been sitting with this ever since that day. It made me wonder — where in my own life have I been waiting for a "big enough" purpose, when really, there might be a candle right in front of me?

I wonder if this question might be useful for you: Is there a small, specific way you could contribute more, right where you already are — and what might it feel like to simply say yes to it?

More on my books here.

Rosemary Pattison is a Melbourne-based children's author and illustrator whose books explore empathy, identity, and the small moments of purpose and connection that shape us.