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SMALL MIRACLE

My 62nd year has been marked by two developments. One is a total joy while the other is less joyous, more sobering. The joyous event comes later this month, my granddaughter turns one. In my family, I did not know from little girls. My Mom was the only girl and had four older brothers. My Dad was an only child. I was the younger of two boys; my older brother had two sons. His sons have produced four grandchildren and the youngest is a precious little girl. I have two sons and a year ago my granddaughter was born. For most of the past year, first on Tuesdays and now on Fridays, I take care of her. Feeding her, walking with her around the duck pond, cradling her in my arms and singing to her all the folk songs of the sixties that I can remember – those days are ones of total joy.

For over 30 years now, I have managed to get running shoes on and hit the pavement for a run anywhere from 20 minutes to much longer. In the 1980’s just to prove some sort of point I managed to finish a marathon. I no longer run with my dog, I reasoned that at his age running maybe a bit too much for a 12 year old yellow Lab to take. I run, he sleeps, which is not too bad a deal not at all.

The sobering development occurred this year; sometime this summer, I ran through the central business district of the town where I live. I caught my reflection in a store window. It was startling, so telling that I stopped dead in my tracks. I ran like an old man. I knew that my speed had deteriorated over the years, but I never thought about how silly I looked. The short choppy steps with the arms somewhat out of synch with the lower body – what happened to the lengthy stride, the smooth strong glide of youth? Just when did I begin to run like an old man? “It must have happened some time during the past year,” I said out loud to no one in particular.

When I came home after that run, after I showered, I had the time to think about the morning’s sobering revelation. Seldom do we see ourselves in quite the same way as others do. In our mind’s eye we may be a bit younger, thinner even and certainly a lot less grey. Rarely, do we get the experience that I had in the morning, and it was more than a little unsettling. Finally, my thought process came to a conclusion – Indeed, I was getting old.

Later that week, on my day with my granddaughter, we took our long walk and wound up in the center of town right in front of an ice cream parlor. It was an Indian Summer kind of day so I said to her, “How about some ice cream little girl?” Taking her smile and silence for affirmation, we entered and I ordered a small dish of vanilla ice cream, complete with two plastic spoons.

As I fed her the sweet treat, her exuberance at each spoonful became palpable, her “oohs” and her “aahs” were joined by other body language, a particular bouncy up and down motion and a steady white dribble down her chin – cute and right out of a Norman Rockwell lithograph. Soon others in the shop came over to see the absolute sheer delight of this little girl enjoying her ice cream. The two attendants from behind the counter came too; they wanted to see just how much this little one enjoyed what they served up.

Just as the little drip found the bottom of her chin, someone produced a Kleenex and ever so gently wiped her little chin. It was so easily and naturally done that it did not interfere with the spoon of ice cream that she was eating. As the drip found the tissue, I heard the person who wiped the drip away say, “There, little one, that’s much better.” Gentleness, kindness, and a smile all are drawn out by a little person, all from those, oh so much larger.

On my way home that day, I thought again about these two developments, aging and my granddaughter, and something finally registered. On religious holidays whenever my family gathers for a meal, we usually take a moment and recite a blessing, “Praised are You Adonai our God, who rules the universe, granting us life, sustaining us, and enabling us to reach this day.” Now, on the festival days, and special occasions like weddings, births, family birthdays or anniversaries, it is very easy to understand why we take the time to say these words.

However, on ordinary days, days which are not really special at all – days of long walks and ice cream with my granddaughter- something may occur that makes the ordinary extraordinary. Today, I thought, was such a time for me. There in that ice cream parlor while feeding my granddaughter very ordinary vanilla ice cream a relationship of pure love came gushing forth. Those who came around us may have thought they were drawn by a cute little baby, but as cute as that baby is, that too is only the ordinary part. The extraordinary is the magic and the silent music which was flowing between that cute little girl and me.

Both of us experienced something beyond our usual bonding, something totally unexpected in that very ordinary ice cream parlor. The love that spewed forth that day was, in the full sense of the phrase, a small miracle. It was the small miracle that drew the people to witness what we were experiencing and that which lit our faces bright. Small miracles will do that, every time.

I took a moment and uttered the blessing. There is a perspective that comes when the hair turns silver and a morning run is made up of a lot of odd little choppy strides.