BEEW

Proofs of Wonder (120 of them)

On May 20, 1999, just after five in the morning, my daughter was born.

If you've been in that room, you know. Reality splits clean in two. Awe, terror, love, blood, relief, all of it flooding in at once. The room erupting with her furious cries. The impossible brightness of her eyes opening for the first time. Holding the strange new weight of her and her entire future in my arms. You walk in one person and walk out another, conscripted, drafted for life.

And then, just fifteen days later, on June 4th, the world swung the other way. My younger brother called. He was only twenty-eight, strong as an ox, and in my mind, untouchable. But now his voice was breaking, unfamiliar, raw with fear. He told me he was just diagnosed with stage-four colon cancer. WHAT?! Then came the question no older brother ever wants to hear: “Am I going to die?” I told him no. No way. I said it with every ounce of conviction I had, because how could I not? He was my kid brother. I promised him I wouldn’t let that happen. I meant it. I was wrong.

That two-week swing from miracle to nightmare, from one of the happiest days of my life to one of the most horrific, schooled me harder than decades of living ever could. Life guarantees you nothing. Control is an illusion. Certainty is a myth. Which is why I've never been a fan of the smile-through-it gospel, that hollow sermon of forced cheer. Nothing could ever make me feel grateful for that June phone call from my brother, or for the 26 brutal months that followed, or for the 24 years I've lived without him. Gratitude is not bleach. It doesn't disinfect grief. It isn't a moral exam you ace by grinning through the wreckage.

But I did learn something else. When life leans hard, it's the smallest things that keep the lattice from snapping. Not capital-G Gratitude, not "I'm grateful for my health" (what if you aren't healthy?), not the tidy list of "family, friends, roof overhead." Those are abstractions, a bit too clean for my taste. What matters are the tiny, uninvited moments that grab you by the shoulders and insist: Look.

I call these Proofs of Wonder. Flashes so ordinary you forget how miraculous they are until they're no longer there. The snap of a baseball in a leather mitt on a July afternoon. The sweet-sour stain of strawberries on your fingertips. A child's laughter in the next room. Fireflies strobing over a field. Your kid pressing a crooked paper crown into your hand, solemnly declaring you king for a day. Proofs of wonder aren't lessons or consolation prizes. They don't redeem a diagnosis. They don't make loss just, or pain noble. But, they are evidence that the world still traffics in beauty, mystery, surprise.

Between May 20 and June 4, 1999, I learned that life's small mercies and ordinary graces aren't decoration. They are the hidden architecture that holds you upright when everything else gives way. Gratitude, I came to realize, isn't the practice itself; it's the verdict you arrive at. The practice is noticing. And noticing is the work. What makes gratitude believable, what gives it weight, is the evidence of wonder all around you.

There's a simple way to train for this. A kind of negative visualization dressed up as play. A Stoic trick without the robes. You start small. Take something ordinary you love—the first sip of coffee in the morning, your kid singing off-key in the shower, the elevator doors sliding open the second you press the button. For a moment, pretend it's gone. Feel the empty space it would leave. Sit with its absence. Then look up and notice it's still here. You still get it. That's the whole move. Start with loss, end with presence. Not gratitude as homework, but appreciation as reflex. Attention, sharpened until it catches on the tiniest threads of your life.

And here's why it matters. Life is a ruthless editor. It tears out whole pages without warning, scrawls over sentences you thought were central, drops in plot twists you never auditioned for. You don't get to choose which chapters stay. Which is why the little keepers—the unscheduled rainbow, the paper airplane that improbably lands on the couch, the quiet moment when you realize your teenager was listening all along—matter so much. Strip them away and the world goes flat. No smell of rain on hot pavement. No hush of lights as the band steps on stage. No toddler joyfully mangling "avocado" into "adocavo." Picture that subtraction. Feel the hollow it leaves. Those small proofs are the knots in the rope, the handholds that keep you from sliding all the way off.

I'd wager that the last time someone told you to "stop and smell the roses" you muttered under your breath, whatever you say asshole? But have you? Have you actually stopped? Leaned in? Breathed it in? All it take is three seconds. And I promise you, if you do, you'll be happy you did. After that, you won't be able not to. I'm not asking you to be grateful or thankful. I'm asking you to notice. And to let the noticing do what it does.

I don't romanticize misery. Some seasons are just bad. People you love get sick. Marriages collapse. Businesses fail. A car accident on the side of the highway haunts you for days. In those stretches, the command to "be grateful"—whether barked as judgment or wrapped in cheer—feels like a wagging finger. But proofs of wonder don't wag or scold. They tap your shoulder and whisper, Look. Still here.

So, next time you see a rose, stop. Lean in. Breathe. Then linger for a minute or two. Notice how the petals fold toward the heart, how the color darkens at the center. Marvel at the one-in-trillions chance that you're here, in this body, in this year, on this planet, close enough to smell it.

Somewhere along the way I started keeping a list of these small gifts from the Lord. The soft lush of a freshly-washed blanket. The sound of birds singing on a quiet morning. The growing excitement of a long ping-pong volley. Sometimes when the days lean heavy on me, I'll flip back through them to remind myself that the world is always offering evidence.

What follows are some of my favorite proofs of wonder. Each one is a marker left on the field, a reminder that amid beginnings and endings, life still slips us small, stubborn gifts. Proofs of Wonder.

Between May 20 and June 4, 1999, I learned that wonder doesn't fix the dark. But it does prove the light is still on.

120 of My Favorite Proofs of Wonder

#favorites #life #small things #wisdom #wonder