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Home › Articles › Family › Magical Moments

Magical Moments

Precious Memories from Our Children Come in Big and Small Sizes

By I.J. Schecter

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It is when Samantha's interaction with those around her takes a different form that Stuart's wife, Jennifer, is most charmed. "When she wakes up, she'll sing and talk to the animals in her crib, sometimes for a half-hour or more," she says. "She sings various songs, tells the animals about what she did the day before. I just listen over the monitor and gush inside."

There Are Scary Moments Too

In some cases, moments of fright or terror occupy a permanent spot in the mind of a parent, because such moments can reveal a child's true vulnerability with chilling force. Toronto resident Anne-Marie understands this all too well. Hours after her daughter Emma's birth, Anne-Marie slept in an adjacent bed as Emma, unbeknownst to her, began to choke silently on her own phlegm. Only because a nurse happened by the room to check on another baby was Emma's normal breathing restored.

"I still shudder to think that, even though I was in a hospital, Emma was still completely defenseless and was saved only because a nurse saw her flailing arms," Anne-Marie says. What has that meant to Anne-Marie's relationship with Emma and her other daughter, Sophie? "Before having kids, I'd have thought the indelible moments would be the typical ones: first smile, first step, first word," she says. "But for me, knowing how fragile their lives really are, it's the smaller stuff that stands out – watching them sleep, missing them while they nap, waiting for them to wake up. The big moments are great, but the small ones, in a way, have more significance."

Anne-Marie's husband, Mark, also feels more attached to Sophie and Emma because of the close call."Everything they do has more meaning because of that," he says. "Every day I think about what a precious gift they are. As a result, small things become huge. Sophie's first word, 'up,' will always stand out in my mind because it was so simple and brief, yet so mind-boggling. I think it was around 8 or 9 months, but how old she was when it happened didn't matter. What mattered was the miraculous feeling I had when I heard it the first time, and then each day after that when we would come get her out of her crib in the morning. Two letters, one incredible word."


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