Pratt Kansas.  McDonalds.

At first, I saw very little.  Austin, Lindsey, Lexi, and I had finished up a lengthy round of Disc golf at the park in the northwest corner of town, tucked down behind the railroad tracks. 

That park is pretty enough and the course neat enough that I’ll go back sometime soon to play it again.

I think Austin finished best on score, and I came in close to the worst, but no matter.  When you can spend a good day with family, score on disc golf doesn’t figure. 

The day was hot, we were overheated, and the McDonalds building didn’t seem overly submitted to the A/C.

I began to pick up bits and pieces of the visual around me as I cooled down and the food and liquid started working.

I picked up on a family seated just to my right.  Grandpa, Grandma, Son, his wife who would bring their fourth child into this world within the week, and three children.

They were, if I were Sean Dietrick writing, your quintessential American family.

They were finishing up their dinner, Grandpa was stretched back in his chair, at ease with life and his family.  Grandma and daughter-in-law chit chatted about the latest things that the family had been involved in.  Son was sitting in the midst of it all, finishing up some of the lunch that his children hadn’t eaten. 

Their little girl, so happy with life and herself, got up from her chair and started meandering around the table in a random sort of way.  I’m pretty sure if I had been near enough and leaned over to her level, I would have heard her humming a tune.

She reached up to the table, took Grandpa’s empty cup, pulled the lid off, and set it on the empty table next to them.  Next, she got her brother’s cup and set it beside the first one on the table.  Lastly, she got her dad’s cup and set it up next to the other two. 

Three cups, all in a row, near the edge of the table, with the lids off.

Her Dad had been watching all along, and when she turned her twinkling eyes to him, the unspoken challenge was easily understood.

“Think I can make a basket,” he asked?

She nodded eagerly.

Wadding up a sandwich wrapper, he gave a toss.

“Aww, missed.”

“Try again.”

Another sandwich wrapper.  The first one had bounced to the floor.

“Aww, missed again.”  It joined the first wrapper on the floor.

Brother tried once and missed. 

Little Miss Twinkle Eyes fetched the wrappers from the floor without being told to and put them back on the tray.

The family resumed their easy conversation as the little girl happily resumed her seat and place among them. 

She belonged.  She added value to the family unit. 

She knew this, because someone took the time to play her little, insignificant game with her.   

Life needs to be like them. 

It’s not in the big showy things which cost a lot of money that we do for or give our children which make the difference.

No.

It’s the little specks of everyday living that fill the barrel of happiness and contentment to the brim. 

And while all those little specks seem so insignificant at the time, they count as worth millions in the long run of things, because, at the end of a good life one looks at his heaping barrel of happiness and marvels at such bounty.

Stop a little, today.  Find some twinkling eyes looking up at you and play their trivial game, even if you must sacrifice some pride in how you look while you do it.  Even if the restaurant floor needs to be cleaned up after you are done. 

Grandma and I met at the soft drink dispenser.

“You have a very nice family,” I said.

“I’ve been noticing yours,” she said.

And, God help me, I hope it was for the same reason I was noticing hers.