Cherished Moments

My former boss would probably not be very happy if I told her that I was spending part of my weekend making a dent in the almost 40,000 photos I have to delete from classroom photo galleries. ☺ (Ever since I sent her an email at 3:00 AM during my first week on the job, she was adamant about me not letting work take over my life.) This is one of those said 40,000 photos that I ran across this morning. I didn’t even know it was being taken, much less published in that class photo gallery! But seeing it further fueled my desire to write this post that I’ve been thinking about for the past few days.

A few days ago, I read this tweet from my co-worker: “Treasuring fun times with my daughter. Don’t know how she got so big so fast. Grateful for who she is and who she is becoming.” I know her daughter. If you work there, you almost can’t help but know her, at least to some degree, because her personality is so big! Reading this tweet immediately made me think of an encounter with her when she was about 3 years old. I walked out of my office on a mission (typical), and was somewhat oblivious to the 10-15 children who were in the media center, which is very close to my office. It wasn’t that they didn’t matter, but I work in a school. Seeing children isn’t all that uncommon. It was just another day…until Emily* ran up to me with a huge smile on her face, arms open wide, and gave me the biggest hug! It caught me off guard, because although I knew who she was, I was certain that she didn’t know me. Furthermore, I was about 99% sure that she was simply confusing me with another co-worker who is a teacher, which happens quite often. That was not the case.

I returned her hug and excitedly exclaimed, “Hi, Emily!” Then she stepped back, grabbed my hand, and led me over to one of the sofas in the media center, while asking, “So, what’s your name?” (I wish I could bottle and preserve the exact way she asked. It was just too cute.) After I told her my name, she told me hers, and the conversation continued. At some point, I commented on how funny she was, which led to her telling me about her mom and dad, and how everyone in her family is so funny. We sat there like 2 friends just catching up on life – a 3-year-old and a 27-year-old.

This exchange interrupted my mission. I had things to do. Who knows where I was headed? To get a purchase order signed? To verify something with the Director of Communications? Does it matter? Clearly not, because I can’t even remember. What I do remember is the exchange between Emily and me. It probably took about 5 minutes, but that’s what I remember. Those are the moments that matter.

In the above photo, we were taking a break between “scenes” while I was filming in a 3-year-old classroom, and Connor* was so intrigued with my camera equipment, so I was answering his onslaught of questions, while making a deal to let him press “record” when we started rolling again.

Although I work in a school, I don’t have a ton of interaction with children, but the thing that really means the world to me is when a child unexpectedly runs up to me and gives me a huge hug…especially when I’m just having one of those days. These moments are priceless, and I hope I keep that in mind as much as humanly possible when I have my own little ones, and that I won’t let my “missions” take precedence.

*I’ve changed their names to protect their identities.