As with most morning, I fought with my 4-year-old son Aaron to get out of bed, brush his teeth, get dressed, eat his breakfast, and get into the car so we could make it to his daycare on time. On one such typical morning, I rushed Aaron out of the house and as we sloshed though the puddles in our driveway, left over from the rain storm the night before, Aaron looked at me with his large eyes and said “Daddy, we need to save the worms.” “Save the worms?” I asked annoyingly to Aaron as I tried to usher him through the car door and into his seat. “Daddy, look at all the worms on our driveway. We need to save the worms,” he insisted. We were already late and I had business meetings all day to attend to, and if not for the total amazement at what my son was trying to convey, I would barely believe what I was hearing. "Remember, you said 'all life is precious’,” he continued, and as I stood over my son feeling the rain gathering at the tip of my noise, I did remember.

Recently on a warm dry day I had asked Aaron repeatedly to stop kicking down the ant hills around our house and after he asked why, I made him watch with me the labor of one in progress. Our brief father-son moment ended in “that's cool Daddy” before Aaron quickly went off to play with his baby brother. I guess I did not realize what an impact my words had.

As my mind recalled that day in our yard, I was jolted back to my driveway on this cold rainy morning. It was obvious that Aaron was adamant and I saw that he had already begun picking up the worms and ever so gently returning them to our lawn. There were large worms, small worms, gray worms, black worms, smooth and slimy worms, bumpy worms – it made no difference to Aaron, they all needed to be saved. What more could I do but help my son and with a big Maple leaf fashioned into a scoop, I began assisting my 4 year old with “saving the worms.” He made sure to repeatedly mention that I needed to be more careful and that I should not rush, and all the while my mind was flooded with utter amazement at what was going on.

As most parents will agree, children can teach us so much about love, sincerity, and the innocence we all too quickly lose as we grow up and face the world around us. Aaron has shown me countless times the meaning of life and restored within me the hope that I all too often let slip away. As I stood there with him in the cold drizzle picking up worms, I felt somewhere deep within that I was also picking up pieces of my heart that I let get away.