Last time, I wrote about the eye. About the strange way we find more of what we are looking for.

This time, I want to tell you what I heard.

“Aww.”

It came from my baby brother, Ahad, who was sitting on the floor watching his son hug our dad. Our parents were tired. Ayaan did not seem concerned with that. He went over and wrapped himself around them, one at a time, and they lit up.

I was witnessing all of this from the massage chair. Obviously. Priorities.

From there, I saw Ahad reach up and tug on his wife’s shirt. Liz turned toward them, and I got to watch her see what Ahad had seen: their little boy hugging his grandfather. It was such a small invitation—”look”—but I got to see the invitation, too. Ayaan in our dad’s arms. Ahad on the floor, wanting Liz beside him in the moment. Our parents receiving this little person who had made them grandparents.

There was so much love in the room that nobody had to announce it. Although Ahad did provide the “aww.”

Recently, I heard about ma, the Japanese idea of space or interval between things. I keep thinking of the space between one person noticing and another person turning to look. Between a sound and the ear that catches it. If I had filled that moment with my own words, would I have heard my brother?

Perhaps listening is a way of leaving room for a moment to become larger than the part of it I first saw.

Later, Ayaan began a second round of hugs. He went from one person to the next with the solemn authority of a tiny tyrant. I watched him coming toward me and had a sudden, ridiculous fear that he would skip me. So I reached out and hugged him as he cautiously walked past.

Fair enough, I thought. I got one.

Then I stopped keeping track. I was laughing with my parents when I felt his head rest on my lap. He had come back on his own.

I got the hug over and over again. In my parents’ faces. In Ahad’s small “aww.” In the tug on Liz’s shirt. In the weight of Ayaan’s head against me when I was busy being there.

I may also have gotten whatever germs he has been carrying around with absolutely no regard for my immune system. The tiny tyrant is generous like that.

The eye finds what it looks for. Maybe the ear teaches us to leave a little room. To hear someone say “aww” and turn toward what they saw. To let a moment come closer without chasing it down.

In art, they may call it negative space. I am beginning to suspect that negative is a description of where it sits, not what it holds.

That day, it held all of us.

❤