There’s one thing in life that taught me more than anything else—and it wasn’t some grand philosophy or life hack. It was raising my son Liam, from his first cries to his fourth birthday, mostly on my own. There’s a whole education in that journey, one that life, books, or mentors can’t quite capture.
I remember this one day when we were on vacation in Spain. Liam was at the playground, just this little guy, barely old enough to string together sentences. And yet there he was, running around with the other kids, all of whom were speaking Spanish, which he didn’t know a word of. But that didn’t matter. They played together like they’d known each other forever. No one needed words to jump into a game of tag, to laugh, to race each other. It was like the words would’ve only gotten in the way. Watching them, I thought, this is it. This is proof of something deeper—a level of connection that goes beyond language, beyond the labels and identities we learn to lean on as adults. They simply knew each other, without knowing each other.
And then there were those moments with Liam and his mother, this bond they shared that was beyond anything I could grasp. She would show up every day for a couple of hours, and every time, without fail, he knew she was on her way long before she arrived. No messages, no signals, just this connection they had. As soon as she stepped onto the train, even when she was half an hour away, Liam would come out of his room and say, “Mummy.” It was eerie in the most beautiful way. I didn’t know when she was coming, but he did. It was like their connection wasn’t tied to time or distance.
Moments like these taught me that connection is the real fabric of everything. We think we’re all alone in our minds, but it’s not true. We’re woven together in ways we can’t see, like threads in a web we’re only dimly aware of. Kids know it intuitively, animals know it, and sometimes, we get glimpses of it too—those moments when we feel someone before they arrive, or when a stranger feels like a friend without a word exchanged.
It makes you wonder about how much potential we have to reconnect, if we could just unlearn all the things that seem so important. When we’re born, we already know how to be connected. Life just teaches us to forget.
> “The truest connections are wordless. They’re felt in the silence, in the spaces between our thoughts.”
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Personal Note:
Watching Liam grow up taught me what no book or course could ever teach. Those little moments are the real lessons, showing that life isn’t just what we say or do—it’s the connections we feel but can’t explain. It’s this silent, invisible web that holds us together. And if we can feel that with just a glance or a laugh, then maybe we’re never really alone.
