Moment Like This

A moment in cowboy boots on a tractor. 

Earlier this summer, I took a bit of a road trip with a good friend of mine. We were on our way to another friend's wedding, but it was in a bit of a random location that required a total  of about eight hours of driving for the two of us.

Being in the car that long, we, of course, covered many topics. And one of those topics was moments. About how you can look at your life as a whole, but moments, small glimpses in time, are what really define you. Good moments, bad moments; they all make us who we are.

And, driving across a part of the country that I've never seen, and arriving to a weekend full of joy and love and fun... thinking about this could not have been more appropriate.

The first part of that drive actually occurred on my parent's 38th wedding anniversary, a moment that I am very grateful happened. And that drive was about three weeks before the second anniversary of my dad's passing (24 August), a moment I wish I hadn't experienced for 40 or 50 more years.

Two years. Two years of moments without my dad. As I write this, it is just over a two years, and it is still hard to believe the moments he hasn't spent with us. The things he hasn't seen, and the smile (or smirk) that we haven't seen from him. The moments we have where he should be...

But again, this is what forms us, changes us, makes us who we become. As much as I miss my dad -- and I have, in ways I didn't think possible, for the past 738 days -- his passing has been a huge moment in my life, one that made me realize to treasure the good moments, as they are essential in getting through the bad.