It's the Small Things | When Love Learns A New Language
The first time my son really heard my voice, he didn’t turn around right away. He was three years old, sitting on the floor and playing with his toy car. I was behind him, softly humming a noha (elegy recited for Imam Hussain) I had sung many times while he slept. It was very quiet, almost like a whisper. Suddenly, he stopped playing. The little car stayed still in his hand. He tilted his head, listening carefully, as if he had heard something interesting. He turned and looked at me, his eyes wide with surprise.
He didn’t know that sound yet; it was brand new to him. That little hum, something so miniscule that I hadn’t even thought about, became a big moment for us.
My son lives in a world of muffled contours and delayed echoes. His mixed hearing loss means some sounds are merely whispers, others are distorted ghosts, and some don’t arrive at all. And all this because of constant colds and earaches that were eating up his middle ear. He was in constant pain and we spent sleepless nights rocking him. His speech, therefore, did not follow the path of baby books. Words didn’t bubble up, they were mined, hard-won from the deep quarries of his mind, and often arrived misshapen, held for too long or released too soon.
In the early days, I was obsessed with the big milestones: the first clear “Mama”, the first full sentence, the ability to be understood by a stranger. I measured our progress in grand, sweeping arcs, and in their absence, I felt a crushing weight of silence.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
His world isn’t made of big, dramatic moments. Instead, it is built from many tiny, sparkling details. Because everyday conversations can be hard for him, he has learned to notice the smallest things. I didn’t learn this from books or therapy, but from watching him.
One afternoon, he spent almost an hour in the backyard with his face close to the ground, carefully watching a line of ants crawl along a garden hose. He wasn’t just looking at them. He was following their busy journey, their teamwork, and their hard work. In that quiet moment, he showed me something important: a story doesn’t need words to be meaningful.
Our communication became an art form of the small things. Language was not our primary currency – attention was. A shared smile over the absurd wobble of a bowl of jelly became a paragraph of joy. The firm, steady pressure of his small hand in mine as we crossed a busy street was a sentence of trust. The way he would gently place his palm on my throat when I spoke, feeling the vibrations of the words he couldn’t clearly hear, was our most intimate conversation.
We have created our own means of communication. A quick flick of the kitchen light means “dinner’s ready”, faster than calling out. A gentle tap on my arm means “look over there”, pointing me toward a bird in the sky or an animal-shaped cloud. Our days are filled with these quiet signals, a special language we share without words.
People often see the absence, the quiet child, the stammered word, the hearing aids like tiny computers in his ears. They see the big things that are different but I have been let into the secret world of the small. I have seen how my son’s different way of hearing has crafted, in many ways, a deeper way of being. He listens with his whole self. He communicates with his whole heart.
The grand narrative of parenting is often written in first steps and graduation days. Our story is written in the margin notes: in a felt vibration, a shared glance held a second too long, a perfectly imperfect word offered like a jewel. It is written in the quiet space between sounds, where understanding grows not from what is said, but from what is truly heard. And in that space, I have learned that it is, indeed, the small things that matter most.
Raziqueh Hussain is a journalist, writer and mother. She is the founder of a kids’ magazine called Explorer’s Digest.
We’ve grown up hearing that “it’s the small things” that matter. That’s true, of course, but it’s also not – there are Big Things that we know matter, and that we shouldn’t take our eyes, minds or hearts off of. As journalists, we spend most of our time looking at those Big Things, trying to understand them, break them down, and bring them to you.
And now we’re looking to you to also think about the small things – the joy that comes from a strangers’ kindness, incidents that leave you feeling warm, an unexpected conversation that made you happy, finding spaces of solidarity. Write to us about your small things at thewiresmallthings@gmail.com in 800 words or less, and we will publish selected submissions. We look forward to reading about your experiences, because even small things can bring big joys.
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This article went live on January twenty-fifth, two thousand twenty six, at twenty minutes past eleven in the morning.The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
