Perfect Moments in Time

I play with my sons as much as I can because those are the most perfect moments in my life. The other night, we played football. Well, it wasn’t really football; it was more like chasing whoever had the ball around the house until you caught him. And once you caught him, you tickled him into submission. Jackson and Ethan began teaming up and blocking for each other. A prouder daddy I couldn’t have been. By the way, Charlie throws a mean spiral.

After football, we played Hide and Go Seek. Jackson and I hid on the far side of the couch under a blanket while Charlie looked for us. Jackson thought it would be funny to fart while we were under the blanket, knowing that I would be trapped in the smell. He couldn’t help but laugh, and Charlie found us.

That night, like every night, after my sons went to sleep, I checked on them and spent a few minutes watching them sleep. Those few moments are always perfect moments in time where I reflect on how fast my boys have grown, how much I love them, and wonder what their futures hold. Those moments, as are the moments when I’m playing with my sons, have a palpable yet surreal and fleeting feeling to them that I wish I could capture and save forever. But as much as I cannot capture light in a jar, I cannot capture those moments. The best I can do is burn those moments into my memory, because like all other perfect moments in time, they slip away.

When I took my boys camping for their first time this past summer, I spent a few moments watching them while they slept in the tent. Watching them sleeping in their new sleeping bags was a perfect moment in time. Then I spent time watching the dying campfire, not wanting it to die, because watching it in the quietness of the nighttime forest was a perfect moment in time. When the fire was reduced to coals, I watched the moon and the stars as they kept their eternal stead, and that was a perfect moment in time. Those moments I burned into my memory as they slipped away.

Our days in this life are numbered. Every moment we live is one less moment that we have left to live. While we may have a lot of imperfect moments in our lives, we have perfect moments ahead of us, and when they come, I hope that we can cherish those moments and not let them be tainted by the imperfect moments that came before.

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