I don’t know how he did it.
When I was growing up, my Dad was the pastor of a large church in Oklahoma. Looking back now as an adult working to build a business myself, I can only imagine how stressful the years of raising four ‘highly emotive’ girls must have been with everything else he had going on. Yet somehow, my childhood years playback in my mind like a videotape of memories of Dad spending time with me.
Just me.
Of course, I have memories of him playing with all of us, but I remember feeling like He always had extra time for me. Just like the moment in this picture, where I remember feeling like I was his whole entire world. The longer I am a parent, the more I realize how important those moments were to me and my development.
And I wonder how in the world he did it.
Because if you ask any one of my sisters, I’m 100% certain they all felt exactly the same way. But when I really try to think back, I know he wasn’t there for all of our school performances. He wasn’t waiting at the bus stop after school. He had to have missed a lot of moments. There’s just no possible way he could have been there for everything. But I remember him being so present in my life. It wasn’t that he had some uncanny ability to be multiple places at once.
It’s that Dad has always chosen to live with extraordinary intention.
Even now, he has four sons-in-law, eleven grandkids, two grand sons-in-law and even a great-grand fur baby, all spread across multiple states. He’s working three different jobs, and yet, somehow, he finds the time and energy to invest in every single one of us. He doesn’t have more time or more energy than anyone else. He simply has more intention.
He makes the moments matter.
It’s not lost on me that not everyone had a father who invested in them the way mine did in me. For all the reasons, life just isn’t fair that way. But I can tell you this:
You get a chance to flip the script.
You have the privilege of creating your own legacy, starting today. And every day after. Just like Dad, you probably have 1 million things going on in your life. You cannot possibly be present for all the moments. But you can choose to make the moments matter. And they will.
They will matter for generations to come.
Maybe one day when you’re turning 74, and your daughter is sitting in her office, writing a blog about you on your birthday, memories will flood her mind of all the moments you made matter. And no matter how tired or busy she may be, she’ll be ever-more inspired to keep insisting on making moments matter with the people she loves.
Just like I am today.
Happy Birthday, Dad.
Thank you for teaching me to make moments matter.
to more love,
Crystal
