Memories

I was five years old and in kindergarten at St. Johns Lutheran Church.  I guess curiosity got the best of me and I was caught swapping peeks of "private areas" with a girl “napping” in the cot across from mine.  I think that I was literally caught with my pants down.  

Also at five I remember a boy riding his two wheel bike into me and my big wheel, leaving a gaping wound in my leg.  My brother tells me that after we returned from the hospital I paid that eight year old a visit and exacted my revenge with a bit of fisticuffs (I don't remember that part).

I was seven.  We were watching that American classic, 'Three's Company'.  Someone had put an egg into Jack's pocket and proceeded to squish it with an open palm.  A discussion ensued between my brother and Mother.  She thought that having an egg broken on you would hurt.  He did not.  The dialog ended with my Mom chasing my brother around the house with an egg and my brother deciding it was a good idea to escape the house through his bedroom window.  It wasn't.  Emergency room.  Broken Leg.

I was seven.  I was awoken in the middle of the night while sleeping at an aunts house.  I was told my mother had died.

I was ten and it was the Fourth of July.  We had just gotten back into the pick-up truck at the snow-ball stand. We were all (brother, sister, friends) riding in the back, carrying on, having a grand time.  But as always, my timing was impeccable.  While enthusiastically telling a story and laughing I put my arms out the bed of the truck and back toward the cab of the truck ... just as my Dad was closing his door.  With the level of noise coming from the bed of the truck, my Dad had no idea that his youngest son was screaming in pain, so he began to drive away.  If not for the quick action of some snow-ball stand patrons, who knows how long my finger would have been stuck in that door.  

I was twelve.  My father was a newlywed.  My sister had gone back to live with her Mom.  I was still relatively new to our area and only had a few friends (really just acquaintances).  And I found out that my brother had joined the Navy.  I sobbed, feeling so alone.

I was thirteen and in middle school.  I was called to the office for an early dismissal, which was unexpected to me.  My Dad didn't say anything to me until we were out of the building (I think because he thought he was doing something wrong).  When we got to the truck he asks "Want to go golfing?"  My clubs were in the back of the truck.

I was seventeen.  I was leaving for college.  I was ready for some freedom.  But as we were pulling out of the driveway, there was fear and a sense that something was ending.  It was hard.  

I was eighteen.  I was walking to class at Godwin Hall at JMU.  I caught sight of a girl walking near the tennis courts.  I had met her, she lived in my dorm, but this was the first time that I had that feeling.  You know the one.  Excitement, nervousness, a wave of awkwardness that forces your words to come out slow and twisted.

I was twenty-one.  I was sitting on the deck at the clubhouse at Lakeview Golf Course in Harrisonburg, VA.  I was about to graduate from college and was taking some time to create some goals for my life.  I had a few jotted down.  But right then I decided that I didn't want to do any of the things that I had written on that paper, alone.  Goal number one ... marry that girl I saw by the tennis courts outside of Godwin Hall.  

I was twenty-two.  I witnessed an angel walking down a red carpeted church aisle in Hampton, VA, headed toward the luckiest man in the world.

I was twenty-four.  I met my son for the first time.  People look at Julie and I strange sometimes because we have four kids.  But who can get enough of the miracle of a child being born.  Nothing measures up to the moment that hours (you can even say months) of labor culminate into that magical moment when your child, created by love, is here, safe in your arms. 

If you made it this far, thank you for indulging me.  I promise that there is a point.  I don't have many vivid memories of my life.  The ones above are just a few of maybe a couple dozen that I have.  When I use the word vivid, I mean that I can see them, feel them, smell them, taste them.  They can be triggered by a number of things such as a person, a place, a song.  I can return to the moment in my head.  And it always surprises me some of the things that I do remember.  The big ones, Julie, Zach, I get it.  But a big wheel accident, a trip to a snow-ball stand, a round of golf?  And there are others, seemingly random, meaningless interactions that stand-out in my journal of memories.  I can only think that somehow these apparently insignificant interchanges have helped to mold who I am.  

It brings me to wonder what will my children remember?  What have they seen and experienced that will shape who they become?  What encounters are in their future?  Most importantly, what can I do to be a well thought of character if I may play a starring role in one of those memories?  I know I have said it before, but it deems repeating, there is nothing, NOTHING, more important than raising your kids.  A parent is literally responsible for the future of the world and I know a lot of us, especially me, do not take that charge serious enough.  

But luckily, I have tomorrow to start.