Tiny Hands

Crossing the monkey bars on the playground at school is a rite of passage for a five year old. I started to worry a little when my daughter came home from school with growing calluses on her hands. At one point a blood bubble popped up on that little space of skin between finger and palm.

It’s the place where she was hanging on for dear life - swinging from bar to bar trying to master the one obstacle that would allow her to tell her friends that she had arrived, in Kindergarten.

At the dinner table each night, we ask our kids, ‘what was good about your day?’ And numerous times over the last month, my daughter sat dejected, ‘I can’t do the monkey bars.’ ‘I can’t do anything.’

The obstacle she faced was nine bars over twenty feet. It would be easy to dismiss as unimportant. A dad’s, “don’t worry, you’ll get it. Hang on! It will come,” was little consolation for the disappointment I could sense.

A few nights ago, we asked the dinnertime question, and she said, “I did the monkey bars today.” Beaming with pride, she smiled at herself for achieving something that she worked so hard to get. Immediately after, she, and her sister jumped up from the kitchen table and started a dance in the living room.

Sometimes the obstacles we face can seem insurmountable. Especially challenging, is that those around us may not even be able to see those obstacles or appreciate the magnitude that obstacle makes us feel.

My daughter's persistence on the monkey bars was a great reminder of resilience. In the face of continuous failure, what sustains us to keep going? And, if we are lucky enough to achieve our goal, how do we celebrate the win with the people we love the most?