The Little In Between Moments

Sometimes, I think, we devote so much time and energy to waiting and planning for those big milestone moments of our lives that we neglect to appreciate the small and seemingly insignificant moments in between. This past Christmas was a strange one for me. I knew going into it that it would be the last Christmas with my family before I get married. I know that next year, traditions may change and it is likely that there will be Christmases in the years to come when I won’t even see my parents and grandparents---who I traditionally spend Christmas with. The realization of that impending change only echoed what has seemed like an endless string of changes that I have struggled to cope with in the past few years.

Most of my closest friends have gotten married and popped out babies and no longer have time for me. Some friends have moved to other parts of the country and I hardly ever see them anymore. Others are wrapped up in their prospering careers and building their custom dream homes. And with wedding bells chiming in my ears daily, I now find myself on a collision course towards all those final bindings of adulthood…….and quite frankly, I hate it.

I don’t quite remember when times were simpler, but it was a long time ago. Thankfully, however, Christmas morning brought with it more than just presents under the tree. It gave me one of those “in between” moments. Those moments you don’t think much about at the time, but that mean something to you down the road. That moment involved me and my dad, two hockey sticks, and a slippery road.

The streets in my parents’ neighborhood were literally sheets of ice on Christmas day. I joked that if I had brought my skates over, I would’ve tried skating on them. Apparently my dad didn’t entirely think I was joking. After returning home from visiting some friends, he grabbed two sticks out of the garage and whacked a puck out onto the shiny street. He yelled at me to grab my new Toronto Maple Leaf’s jersey he’d got me for Christmas so we could take a picture playing on the street. 

With him in his Montreal Canadien’s jersey and me in my Maple Leaf’s one, we stood on opposite ends of the street passing the puck back and forth. I’m pretty sure the whole neighborhood could hear the loud thwacking sounds of the puck hitting on and off our sticks over and over again. As we passed, my dad told me how he was pretty sure it was the first time he’d played ice hockey in the streets since he was a kid. He said how when he was a kid, all the neighborhood boys would get together and make sticks out of plywood because none of them had real sticks. Of course, the sticks were only good for about one hit or so before busting, but they didn’t care. He recalled the glorious day, though, when the first kid got a real stick and they all oooed and awwwd over it and swapped it between them. 

As he talked, I forgot all about my wedding stress and worries about work, money, friends, kids and a dozen and a half other things. All I focused on was the feel of the stick in my hands and the reverberation of the puck hitting against it. It seemed so old-fashioned to be out playing in the street before a holiday dinner….like something you’d see depicted in a Norman Rockwell painting. It seemed like such a simple thing, but in that moment I somehow knew in my gut that that moment would matter to me later.

I’ve had a lot of unique opportunities in the past couple of years to share in some of my dad’s greatest passions. Hockey has been one of my very favorites. I have played in dozens of games with my dad and he’s been there to see me score all of my goals. Those were great moments. But I think that Christmas morning, out on the slippery street outside our house passing the puck between us, was the best one yet.

We always take care to appreciate, document and put to memory the big moments in life like graduations, weddings, and babies. But sometimes, just sometimes, it’s those little moments in between that will grow the deepest roots in our soul and keep us appreciating and loving life and all of the people we share it with for much longer than a lifetime.