"Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things." -Robert Brault
This past weekend a birthday was celebrated for my son Dan. No longer a young boy but a man in the second half of his twenties. A man that changed around his life and as with all of my boys is making a difference in the lives of other people today.
One thing that always stands out in my mind and his grand father's is an incident way back in 1988. The incident still plays in my mind like it were yesterday. It starts with the thought that serious injury was about to take place. It ends in giggling and laughter.
We were in the process of moving temporarily into a new apartment building until we could find a house to buy. The apartment came with a garage but since it was newly constructed, the interior garage walls were not yet completed. Only the bare wooden studs served as walls, but we unloaded our items from the large rental truck.
My father helped in the move and we placed the long metal ramp such that we could bring items down directly into the new garage. But the truck was at an angle so that others could get around us in the parking lot.
By this time, Dan was old enough to ride those Big Wheel tricycles. It was his favorite thing and somehow we had lost track of Dan as he made his way up into the rental truck. My father and I were down in the garage moving items when we happened to look up. Dan had found his Big Wheel and was zooming through the truck and down onto the ramp.
It happened so fast that neither of us could catch him as he came down the ramp and towards the stud wall. What raced through my mind in those fleeting seconds were the injuries that were sure to occur. He would either come off the side of the ramp and crack open his skull, or slam right into the wooden studs, breaking an arm or even worse.
Down he came though and seeing what was about to happen, he made a sharp left turn and rolled off the Big Wheel right between two wooden studs. He received not a single scratch from the incident. My first instinct was to admonish him, but he came up giggling.
As I look back, that was a sign that he was going to do just fine in life. So it is these many years later, he is doing just fine. So HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my son and keep on rockin' it with the Big Wheel.
