Measuring things

Recently bumping into old friends with their now adult son inevitably led to the following words being uttered: “Blimey, you’ve grown!” 

The same sort of thing our parents and grandparents used to say, the very thing we promised ourselves we’d never do.

Except we do now do it, and apparently all the more so as we too get older.

Time seems to be passing in a different way- like a train, one minute speeding through the countryside then at the next idling outside a station.

How do we measure things, be it time or other areas of life?

We both love coffee so it’s perhaps not that surprising that Liza measures some things in cups of coffee. When considering purchases of smaller items she runs through a mental calculation of how many of her beloved Flat Whites something costs. Odd but true!

Our grandson, Huxley, has taught us to measure things in a very different way. His mum wrote  about it on his Instagram page. When his brain damage was first diagnosed the outlook was grim and just keeping him well involves an enormous amount of work. However none of us realised how precious the measuring of his milestones would become. Things like the control he has gained over certain movements, painstaking and exhausting for him but bringing him and us such joy. Or the power he now has to communicate with his eyes, so we can know his wants and needs. The exuberance in living that he so clearly expresses.

How do we measure the worth of such things?

We probably can’t but as Schumacher identified “Small is Beautiful” and like the Hebrew prophet Zechariah once said “For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice.”