It's the little things

I was watching The Reading Room tonight and one of the teacher's remarked that the most gratifying thing was to have a student return (after 15 or so years) to her classroom and tell her he was in his 3rd year residency. It made me think of my youth who recently brought me a copy of her report card so I could see it. I had tutored her some in math last semester and she had a stellar report card overall. I was very proud of her initially when I saw it, but didn't feel much more than that. But tonight I was struck by how cool it is that not only did she get good grades and was excited about them, but that she really wanted to share her excitement with me. Then when I finished the movie I was reading email and had one from another youth, just a note congratulating me on being a godmother and telling me youth went well in my absence. Neither of which are life-changing, but it is pretty awesome to have youth who call to check in on me, and to have it confirmed that the other youth leaders (who are still "in training" in so far as they have only been 5 or 6 times now) did a good job with it. It really is the little things that make it all worthwhile.