Rediscovering Wonder

He lay on my chest, his head tucked under my chin, his small hands resting like the world had stopped spinning just for him. I stayed still, feeling the weight of him, the warmth. The quiet demanded my attention–a moment I wanted to fold up and keep in my pocket forever.

His eyes, wide and unblinking, wandered slowly across the room. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular. He was just looking. I wondered what he was thinking. Maybe nothing at all. Or maybe everything. His world is so tiny, so new, so unshaped by worry. What does wonder feel like before you can name it?

I’d like to think he feels safe here and knows he’s loved. But not in the way I’d think it—no inner dialogue, no analysis. He just is. Safe because he’s held, loved because it surrounds him. His trust isn’t earned or reasoned. It just exists.

And yet, while holding him, my mind whirs on like a factory. I think about what kind of father I’ll be, whether I’m enough, whether he’ll remember these moments. I wonder if he knows I’d give everything for him without hesitation. I wonder if I’m doing this right. And then I look at him, transfixed by the sunlight seeping through the slats, and I realize he isn’t wondering about any of those things. He’s just watching the light. He’s just being.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped doing that. I stopped seeing sunlight as more than a signal to check the time. I stopped marveling at the way shadows dance across a wall. And I’m not sure when that happened—when the extraordinary started feeling ordinary—but here he is, pulling me back to a simpler way of seeing.

I thought being a dad would be about teaching him. Showing him how the world works, how to be strong, and how to grow into the kind of man who does good in the world. And I still hope for those things. But right now, it feels like he’s the one teaching me—how to stop, how to notice, how to be still long enough to let wonder sink in.

His breath slowed as his eyes grew heavy, and I thought, “Thanks for showing me what I’ve forgotten.” As I began to speak those words , my son nestled deeper into me. He didn’t need words to teach me—he just needed to be. So, I kept my thoughts to myself and stared at the light pouring in behind the blinds of the window as I rediscovered wonder through the eyes of a child.