Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.

                                                                    –Booker T. Washington

About a year ago, a very ordinary moment turned into a profound experience that feels both hugely important and highly confusing to me. I think of it often, because it seems like the Rosetta Stone for understanding life challenges. Unfortunately, I have not been able to crack the code. But I know you can, so I am sharing this story for you to decipher. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Here’s what happened.

It was time to go to preschool, and Alia’s helper was a no-show. Since Alia cannot stand or walk on her own or feed herself—yet!—she needs an adult caregiver to accompany her. I didn’t want her to miss out on a fun morning with her friends, so I decided to call off from work and go with her instead.

We spent the morning playing with blocks, painting, gathering round for Circle Time, and searching for toys buried in the sand table. Alia was having fun. I incorporated her physical therapy exercises into her playtime, as I do every day at home.

Although the tremors make it difficult for Alia to balance, practice makes her stronger and more stable. So we practice. A lot. Everywhere. Including here at preschool. And she was doing awesome! I usually hold her at the hips to keep her from shifting too far to either side, and as she finds her balance, I let go for a second at a time. Tiny taps to keep her centered, with increasing pressure as she gets tired or moves her legs. But today, she was so steady, I was letting go for five seconds at a time, then ten, then twenty! Incredible! And not just once, but she was able to keep her balance over and over again.

I was so happy for her! So proud! If we were in a movie, this would have been the big ending—huge, sweeping music; slow motion footage; the camera circling around Alia, triumphant, as she stands in the middle of the classroom, on her own!

In real life, though, what happened was…nothing. No one even noticed. And truly, I mean no one. Not the teachers who spent every school day with her for the past seven months, not the other kids, not the program director who was in the room, not even Alia. She was busy playing.

It took 5,000 hours of physical therapy to make those twenty seconds possible. How is it possible that I am the only one who noticed? What does it mean to pour heart and soul into achieving milestones that are invisible to the people around us, milestones that 99 percent of us achieve simply by waking up each morning?

I struggle to remind myself that although Alia’s challenges are visible and obvious, we all have challenges. How many times have I missed someone else’s amazing moment? What about people who struggle with a serious alcohol problem—a recent headline cites 32 million Americans last year alone—who showed the courage and strength to stay sober that day? Obvious to them, probably second by second, yet invisible to me. Or people dealing with the loss of a loved one? Or the 20,000 people in the United States who call domestic violence hotlines on any given day? The list of distressing human conditions goes on and on.

Knowing that most of us, maybe all of us, face significant challenges that test our sense of well-being does not make me feel better. Knowing that these challenges offer each of us an opportunity to better understand ourselves and the people around us, does. So, what did I learn from the experience that morning?

I don’t know. Do you?

Alia was born three months early, so my maternity leave was spent in the NICU. Fortunately (in a way), the emergency c-section I had gave me additional recovery time covered by insurance, so I was able to stay home and care for Alia those first weeks home from the hospital. But then I had to go back to work. I needed to find a full-time nanny to cover for me, and as I’m sure every first-time parent feels—and probably second- and third-time, too—the prospect was unnerving to say the least.

I didn’t know anyone to ask, so I looked online and tried to find someone who seemed kind, honest, reliable, detail-oriented, experienced, energetic, cheerful, organized…my wish list was impossibly long.

I met with as many applicants as I could. It was a terrifying process since so much was at stake. The whole idea of hiring a stranger to care for your most precious person, leaving them alone in your home with all of your less precious possessions, is insane yet common. For context, I grew up in New Jersey where it is 100 percent not the case that we were taught to believe that you can trust everyone all the time and the world is filled with care bears and rainbows. This nanny had to have incredible credentials.

And she did. Mimi was an older woman, who was fluent in Spanish (English, not so much), had little to no formal education, and an unusual understanding of how appliances worked. She also radiated kindness. I could almost feel it coming off her skin. She had a warm, happy smile and so clearly adored my daughter, it was hard to remember she only just met her. She had excellent references (federal prosecutors would be proud of the way I cross-examined those people!) and she would be available as soon as her current family moved, which is why she was available at all.

In the chaos and fear of caring for an infant for the first time, working full-time, and feeling dog-tired all the time, Mimi was our lifeline to the warm and loving home I wanted for my daughter. By nature, I would say I am not warm or loving. I am honest, loyal, understanding and reasonable, but I don’t have the courage to share tender feelings as openly as people like Mimi. I admire her deeply.

Mimi arrived refreshed and full of energy; I was frantic and frazzled. What a relief every morning to see Mimi at our door, eager to begin her day caring for Alia. She was always on time. Always smiling. She kept careful notes, she followed every instruction, and was so clearly in her element (while I was most definitely not), that I often went to work feeling like Alia was in better hands than my own.

As I struggled to maintain a façade of competence at work (I had a new job—remember, my employer effectively fired me when she found out Alia was born three months premature), Mimi sparkled with joy. She would come in, put down her bag—and she was off, gathering supplies, setting up the room for play, and doing whatever needed to be done for Alia to have a perfectly pampered day. While I knew such care couldn’t undo the trauma of Alia’s birth and first few months of life, it sure felt good to see her treated like that.

I was impressed and inspired by Mimi’s dedication. She had a calling not a job, and she knew it. Whatever troubles she had, she left them in the car before coming to our doorstep. Wow. I don’t know how to do that. I carry my worries with me wherever I go, turning them over and over in my mind, even in my sleep. Not Mimi.

We’ve had several nannies, and now aides, since Mimi. Some of them have as much experience, all of them have strong references, but none has shown the same dedication infused with delight. (Alia’s care grew too complicated to teach Mimi, even with help from Spanish-speaking friends, so I had to find new helpers.)

I’ve been thinking a lot about Mimi recently, and I think it’s because I read this on someone’s Pinterest board.

“At the end of life, what really matters is not what we bought but what we built; now what we got but what we shared; not our competence but our character; and not our success, but our significance. Live a life that matters. Live a life of love.”

The author of this quote is marked “unknown” but I believe it was Mimi.

Note: As I was writing this post, I got curious about the meaning of the name Mimi, a pet name for Maria. I discovered that the meaning is not known for certain, but most likely it was originally an Egyptian name, derived in part from mry “beloved” or mr “love”.

Here’s to the Mimi’s in our lives!