Little Can Be Big!

It’s the little things that can make the difference.  

It’s the little things that can help you see the bigger picture.

It’s the little, tiniest of things that can end up mattering the most.

A few days ago, our doorbell rang later in the evening.  At any other time of year, I would have wondered who it was.  But it’s the holidays, and I knew it was going to be the UPS man.  He has a routine in our neighborhood, and he generally shows up at our house around 7:00pm.  

Olivia (who begins her Christmas countdown every year on December 26th by declaring “364 days till Christmas!”), ran to the door.  She also knew who it would be.  By the time she got there, the UPS guy had already dropped off the package and was walking down the driveway toward his idling truck.

As she picked the package up, I heard her yell loudly enough for the deliveryman to hear as he got into his truck, “Thank you!”

It was the littlest thing, but it made my heart do a little happy dance.  

The UPS guy never waits for us to open our door.  He’s in a hurry.  He drops the box on the porch and runs.  He’s got deliveries to make and a schedule to keep and probably a family to get  home to when he’s done.  

Even though he never actually hands me the boxes, I have always, always, always yelled “thank you!” to him, even if I thought he couldn’t really hear me.  

Because maybe he can.  

Maybe he reads lips.  Maybe he has bat hearing.  Maybe he runs away so quickly because no one ever says thank you.  I don’t know.  But just in case any of those scenarios are true, and because it’s just plain old polite to thank someone when they give you something, I have always yelled “thank you!” to the UPS man.  

And now so does my daughter.  

For all the times I doubted whether anything I was doing was sinking in; 

for all the times I felt like I was banging my head against a wall; 

for all the times I was absolutely positive that my kids did not hear a word I was saying; 

for all the times I was beyond sure that they were not even trying to listen; 

for all the times I thought they were missing the point; 

for all the times I was convinced that setting a good example was perhaps not going to pay off in the end run--

just the simple act of my daughter screaming “thank you!” at the top of her lungs into the darkness to a person she couldn’t see who probably couldn’t hear her felt like the biggest, most gigantic little gift in the world.