I’ve started writing five different times, each with different stories and titles and I’ve backspaced every sentence. I’m in the mood to write, yet I want it to be meaningful, not slummed together without thought. I want quality and I want words that matter, but all my fingers can type out are the small morsels. I worry, as if writing about the little things isn’t meaningful; Fearful that it will sound redundant because if ever there was a dead horse being beaten, it’s my mantra of treasuring the little things.

The thing is, life’s lessons are mostly found in the little things. The redundant things tweak the moral of our stories just enough so we grasp their meanings a little deeper each time. Like holding hands with Josh in the car, and having a random, hazy flashback of our dating years before two little bodies occupied the back seat. Thinking of our hopes and dreams then, and seeing where we are now. It forced the worried what-ifs of life to the side and I felt it deeper than before, the gratitude and joy. We’ve held hands in the car a million times before, but somehow this time, it  marinated in my heart a little longer and settled in deeper; And  I needed it.

After Judah’s IEP meeting Thursday, I spent yesterday afternoon bent over his file, shuffling through paper documents and clicking through school emails. The meeting, initially set to schedule Judah’s compensatory services for Occupational and Physical therapies (a combined total of around 880 minutes) ended without anything being scheduled. It’s the second time we’ve all cleared our schedules and met for this purpose and the second time that no one in that meeting has been authorized to set the schedule. Along with the districts previous violations of special ed law, this incident is that proverbial last straw. But in the middle of paper shuffling and clicking, worrying and flashing forward to twenty years and the what-ifs regarding Judah, I remembered that brief hazy moment in the car. I felt it again, the deeper gratitude and joy. The what-ifs are there, the worries of twenty years down the road are there and they are real, but even deeper and more solid is the richness of what is now.

So yes, the little things – like holding hands in the car – they are full of substance and they matter. I won’t ever despise those little moments, I will teach my children to look for and value them, because they are gold. Another thing I will never despise? Walking by the bay, under these clear blue skies with my boys. 

I hope your weekend is full of monumental little things