May 27, 2005

Treasured memories

Mac and I are taking the two young ones camping this weekend.

Young ones? Who am I trying to kid!? They're 7 and 10 now - big boys. And my eldest is 16. How did that happen? Sometimes, it seems like the years have just flown by. And it won't be long now 'til they're all grown up and gone.

Here's another father thinking on the same subject as his son approaches his thirteenth birthday.
It seemed just a moment ago when he was a little boy. Now, in just a few days, Jackson would become a teen-ager. The time was not far off when he will be too big a kid for me to kiss him goodnight. The time was not far off when he will not be down the hall at all.

"There will come a time – and terribly sooner than I would realize – when I would give anything to have Jackson down the hall, in his room, waiting for me to come and kiss him goodnight. I would give anything to have a time machine, to be able to come back in time to just this moment right now, to be able to have him there in his bed in his room, to kiss him good night just one more time.
I don't imagine this weekend will be the last time the boys and I go camping together. But I do know that many of the things I, too often, take for granted today are tomorrow's treasured memories.

Catch 'em while you can.

(With thanks to Joe Katzman at Winds of Change for the link.)