Tiny Dancer in My Hand

Yesterday I received a package from my brother — a DVD of my girls several Christmases ago. They were 2. A couple things came to mind as I watched the video.

Details…they really do matter. One of my favorite songs is "Tiny Dancer" by Elton John. When my girls were born, they spent 2 months in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. For the first few weeks, we didn't always get to hold them. So when we were allowed to have a minute with them, it was heaven. I would sing this song to them every single time. And as my husband and I drove home at night, very late, I would find myself humming it. When I hear it now, I cannot help but tear up…it just takes me back so precisely to those first few months. The DVD was set to this song. Having my brother remember this small, but meaningful, detail….well, it is everything. And to him, I say a hundred thanks. Details…they absolutely matter.

And how can I go from watching my girls at 2 and seeing them now without pausing for a moment… They were, and still are, so boisterous, curious, happy, and full of life. In the moment of that particular day, it all seemed ordinary. But seeing it again 4 years later, it was extraordinary.

There is a quote I LOVE, and I share it frequently because it captures how quickly time passes…and what we miss if we lose sight of the bigger, and better, purpose. Our babies become children that morph into teenagers…and before we know it, they are adults. So to help us all keep perspective, I share this:

"…but the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4, and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in a hurry to get on to the next things: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less." Anna Quindlen