Perspective

Jack and I got to spend some good quality time alone together today. He had an afternoon appointment at Children's. I picked him up early from school. We chatted the whole way there in the car. While we waited in the waiting room, we played "Chips On", the new board game he created last week. Then, after our appointment, we sat in the lobby for a while, waiting for our car to come back from valet parking. He stood mesmerized in front of the kinetic ball sculpture. I munched on a salad from Au Bon Pain. Then, I noticed a young girl sitting in a wheel chair just a few feet from Jack. She was a very recent quadruple amputee. All of her limbs were tightly bandaged, and she was still attached to an IV and oxygen. She was accompanied by a nurse, a ChildLife specialist or social worked from the hospital, and her dad. She too was entranced by the sculpture, but was silently crying. Her dad wiped her face periodically with tissues. In one instant, I felt my whole life shrink to smaller than the size of a grape. All the stress I had felt this morning over my untouched to do list, my anger over the kids bickering, my frustration watching them make mess after mess in the house, my exhaustion from Theo's night wakings, were gone. None of it mattered at all. My kids were healthy, whole, perfect in their own imperfect ways. I sat there with a huge lump in my throat, but thankful, so thankful, for that heartbreaking reminder of what is truly important in life.