With the first snow of the season landing on our lawn, I was reminded of this particular night last winter.
We had just spent two weeks at a beach with the whole entire extended family.
We were coming back, the flight was a little delayed.
The kids were getting tired, the adults were getting tired, too.
We were all kind of hungry, but not really – You know that state, right?
Don’t get me wrong – we were all VERY well rested from the vacation – BUT the travel does its thing to a person.
We had our car parked at the grandparents house so someone needed to go pick that up.
My hubby volunteered and then came and picked us up at the airport.
And this is all happening after the some low-level stresses with international travels/arrivals, right?
Doing passport control, getting our luggage, putting some warm clothes on because flip-flops and sleeveless shirts weren’t gonna cut it in the Minnesota January cold.
This whole time I kept thinking to myself, as it’s nearing 10 o’clock at night – and we just got dumped a whole bunch of snow a day or two before so I am dreading it in advance.
Just a little.
Thinking how we will have to clean all that snow up before we can even get in the house, so as not to tread all the snow inside.
When my husband got to the airport, got us all piled in the car, cranked the heat up and started driving.
To our huge surprise, as we came around the corner —
Looking at our driveway, our lights were on and our entire driveway was completely cleaned up.
Now, you have to understand – We haven’t asked anybody for a favor.
I don’t know that we told any of our neighbors when exactly we were coming back.
None of that.
I don’t think any of that happened.
Yet, we drove up all the way to the door, without so much as touching a shovel or starting the snowblower – able to get out of the car swiftly (you must understand it’s COLD outside), get the luggage out & the kids to bed.
Walk in without dragging all the snow inside.
And all I kept thinking was:
Wow, that was something else.
That was so impactful.
If this isn’t heartwarming, I don’t know what is.
So we sent a message to the next-door neighbors – and just full of gratitude, saying to them:
Thank you so much. That that was so impactful and our neighbor bless his heart so it’s no big deal right nothing like no problem. Happy to do it. Welcome back.
Speechless as we were – My husband replied with one simple sentence.
“Either way, THANK YOU. It had a huge impact.”
Now
I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
And I kept coming back to it this way:
If they would have left a homemade meal in our fridge that night, would I Have been happy?
Of course.
If they would have written a really cute Happy New Year’s to your family Card and left THAT at the door?
Of course.
Say they would have left our favorite kind of cookies or a basket of fruit or homemade banana bread for the morning?
I would NEVER have said NO to any of those things.
Or – or a dreamy kind of world – if someone would have come and cleaned all our bathrooms and freshly laundered our sheets or taken out our trash (I guess we do that before we leave anyway) –
But you get what I’m saying, yeah?
I would have been a happy clown.
To come home to those lovely things too.
OR to a fridge full of groceries or whatever other lovely thing a person could think of and make happen.
Don’t be mistaken.
BUT when it came to impact – with the weather what it was, with the timing what it was –
The clean driveway was HEAVENLY.
The foot of snow taken care of so ALL we had to do is pull in- nobody had to wait – we didn’t have to walk through the pies knee high in our flip flops –
The driveway was the most impactful.
You already know where I’m going with this.
I’m still gonna ask you.
Do you know what the most impactful thing is for your spouse on any given day?
How do you know?
How do you find out what the most impactful thing is and when?
Some people will say this goes back to the whole love language discussion – but it doesn’t even necessarily have to.
If you don’t know what I just said – You might benefit from going back to this article here and checking it out.
You both would.
Just my sense.
Of course, there are semblances of it in how I am talking about our coming back experience.
What’s the most impactful, loving for you?
And — Do you know how you know?
It’s that thing that someone else offers you that ends up feeling like the right thing at the very right time that makes you feel like you’ve just been hugged by a giant bear.
Unless, of course, you hate hugs.
Then it wouldn’t feel that way.
Does that make sense?
I love it when my couples let each other know these things.
When, after one creating that kind of a comparable experience for the other, they circle back and let each other know
“That was so unbelievably gracious.”
“That meant so much to me.”
“You coming out and doing that thing for me/with me – I can’t even put it into words.”
Give each other the gift of confirmation.
Yes – how you are looking at it – matters to me and means something.
Yes – the way you are processing or responding to a particular situation – or how you completely take it OFF of my plate – unheard of.
Leave less of it to be a guessing game – and more of it to be totally known.
Because when you know more, you two can do more for/with each other.
When you know more – you can do BETTER.
Be more precise.
If you don’t believe me – TRY IT.
PS: Let me know what your spouse says about it after 🙂
If you two would like help figuring this impact-piece (and all the other things) out – Schedule an Initial Phone Consultation with me HERE and let’s talk.
