A couple of minutes with my dad and even an interruption from mom about phone calls from my brother Danny and one from me – Spring, 2001.
I don’t know what’s become of all the video tape that was made across the years – especially Christmas Eve with family – as mom and dad started to age. Hearing their voices again this morning; the stories dad told that we just took for granted, even mom saying that she’d just been on the phone with Danny, with me, makes me want to sit and watch every video ever taken. Not watching to garner wisdom or even to recapture the moment – much as both of those appeal to me. But just to sit in the wealth of their love again and remember.
Simple things; breakfast together, talking to mom on the phone, dad getting excited about going out to lunch… they all hold so much more value now that they’re gone. These voids are reminders to make the most of this moment. Even the seemingly simple moments. If looking back they’re gifts of wonder, how much more priceless they should become as we actually live them out. This introspection, that becomes action, is all too often a parting gift of aging and even then we miss the miracle of it all.
Your life, my life, is a choice. God chose to gift it to us and I believe it’s our task to live it to the full. Choosing to put it all on the line – sharing the wonder of simple things.
It was a running joke in our family, whenever the clan would gather, that soon, Uncle John, Dad or one of the elders would say something along the lines of “This may be the last time we’re all together like this…” All the kids would groan – we’d heard it so many times. But our parents lost their folks so unexpectedly, so young, mostly while they were away. They knew what it was like to have a father, a brother, a mother, a sister, no longer at the table… one voice no longer lifted up in song… and they did their best to impart that gift of aging onto us, the young, and we merely groaned. We were eternal. This moment was just one more in a line of so very many. We were missing the miracle that was so quickly slipping through the fingers of our family.
This moment. It’s what I thought of when I heard mom and dad’s long departed voices that I’ll never hear again. I’d like to think that eternity somehow restores every wonderful family memory but I doubt it. My guess is that the joy of eternity is well beyond the grasp of my imagination. Until then we have the very precious now. I want to make the most of it.
Traveling across country in 1963, Aunt Helen paid Kathleen and I not to chew gum in the car. On our way to a youth convention in 1968, Dad, Tim and I camped out in our Dodge Monaco – I slept in the trunk. Spent the summer of 1970 traveling the country in a VW van with Jeff Truax and his mom. Jeff and I saw Linda Rondstadt and the Stone Ponies at Blossom Amphitheater outside of Akron on a beautiful evening in July… the stories just go on and on… decade after decade with an ever expanding circle of purpose and adventure… but it’s the simple moments in between that fill the big stories of our lives with wonder.
Choose wonderful adventures. Invite me to share them… or someone you love… and remember to make the most of the precious moments in between. It’s those in between moments that hold the rest of life together, like a catalyst, and give us strength to go forward into so uncertain a future. Begin by doing something special today. You and the people you share yourself with deserve to discover the wonder within you and without you.
many blessings and much love for the very best in this moment.
Eric