Now, here’s a story that will make you take more care with your spelling: A young monk arrives at the monastery and is assigned to help the other monks to copy by hand, the old canons and laws of the Church. He notices that all the monks are copying from copies and not from the original manuscripts. So, the young monk goes to the Abbot to question this procedure, pointing out that if someone made even a small error in the first copy, it would be continued in all the subsequent copies. The Abbot said, “We have been copying from the copies for centuries but you make a good point.”

The Abbot goes down to the dark corridors under the monastery to where the original manuscripts are held as archives in a locked vault. Hours go by and no one has seen the Abbot. So, the young monk becomes worried and goes down to look for him. He sees the Abbot banging his head against the wall and crying out, “We missed the R! We missed the R! We missed the R!” The young monk asks the Abbot, “What’s wrong?” With a choking voice the Abbot replies. “The correct word was celebRate!”

If ever there was a story to give practical meaning to the following words of Robert Brault, then, this was it: “Enjoy the little things. One day you may look back and realise that they were the big things.” Yes, it’s the “little things” in life that matter, and appreciating the “little things” involves focussing our attention to ensure that the pleasurable, nurturing and sustaining small things that make for happy memories, do occur at regular intervals.

At a seminar for prospective parents, the participants were asked to provide one impromptu recollection of their childhood; here are a few of the responses: “Making cubby houses out of chairs and sheets in our front room.”

 “Finding $5 in my jeans put there by my dad.”

“Playing monopoly on wet Sundays.”

 “Bush walking and carrying our own lunch on our back.”

“Ice cream after Sunday Mass.

We’d go to Mr Macs’ Milkbar.”

Under the sprinkler in the back yard on really hot days.”

Being left for a morning at my grandmother’s place.

We’d play card games and eat fresh bread with chunks of hard butter on it.”

Nothing too sophisticated there but, nevertheless, still fresh in the mind and cherished. Of course, non-event memories are just as important as those associated with events like the ones above. We remember how our parents loved us and showed us affection; how they listened to what we had to say; how they established clear rules and boundaries; how they were fair but firm; how they knew how to have fun together and with us; how they modelled respect to one another and to us; how our parents would lead us in a “Thank you, God” prayer together before our evening meal; how our parents praised us for our efforts rather than our results. And if our parents didn’t do these things, then, we remember that instead.

 There is no doubt that we parents are a very important influence on the degree to which our children will have a healthy self image. The memories we give our children to take forward in their lives, will be based, in great part, on the type of influence we provided.

“God, our Father, we are thankful for the gift of shared parenthood with You. Help us to be relaxed in our lives when we know things are going well and self-forgiving when we make mistakes.”