“I have a dream. I want to be a scientist one day!” I found these words on a piece of gray construction paper, written in my five-year-old son’s best penmanship along with his drawing of test tubes. His dream was expressed twenty-four years ago and I smiled as I imagined the exuberance and the innocence in which he wrote his declaration.
I thought about how my little son had grown up into a twenty-nine-year-old man and how his dreams have changed many times over the years. While he did not pursue that dream to be a scientist, he is certainly very intelligent, creative, and busy investigating life. Where did the time go? I ask myself the same question each year when this first-born has another birthday.
Recently, my daughter was home on a break from college and decided we should get going on the garage cleaning project for which we previously hadn’t had time. So we were knee-deep into it when I discovered my son’s school paper along with tons of other “good stuff.” It seemed as if a time capsule had exploded in my garage as my daughter and I shuffled through all of the papers and memorabilia that were saved in cardboard boxes and taken from place to place as we changed residences over the years. These were the boxes that were marked “Important: school papers,” or “childhood memories.” With each move, we took the boxes with us and stored them away in the attic or garage, hoping to look through them one day. That’s just what we were doing that afternoon as we attempted to bring order to our long-neglected garage.
I’ll be honest. I have been called a pack-rat on more than one occasion. Thanks, guys! It’s because I am a mother. I have trouble parting with remnants from my children’s pasts, so I save a lot of them — well, most of them!
My daughter and I laughed and reminisced over so many funny stories of all five of them growing up. We could almost hear the conversations, laughter, and tears of times past during our day-to-day experiences with each other in our family.
Life is precious, a gift to us from our Lord to use with care. Many cherished moments, woven together, form our lifetimes. We choose to a certain extent how we want our lives to unfold by responding in one way or another to what our Lord gives us. We can proceed running through our days oblivious to the blessings that surround us and to the opportunities of grace that our Lord presents to us each day, and really each moment, of our lives. Or we can consider how we will respond to this precious life, full of blessings and opportunities that we have been gifted with.
We stand here in the present moment, remembering our fond memories of the past, our treasured moments with family and friends. We look forward to the future, all of our tomorrows, with hope in our hearts.
We must remember though, to live in this moment now, cherishing it, experiencing it, trying hard not to run to the next thing we are scheduled to do. We can seek a closer union with our Lord, right here, right now, setting an example for those around us, responding in love to everything and everyone that we are privileged to encounter, the good and the bad, the happy and the sad. We can seek to serve our Lord now in our moments of today.
It’s important to hold on to this present moment for all it’s worth. Let’s seek the opportunities of each day and really live them and embrace them. Life is given to us to be lived to the fullest. Let’s not let the opportunities for love and grace pass us by. And let’s not forget to enjoy them right now.
By the way, if you happen to be in the neighborhood, don’t peek in my garage windows just yet because I am not finished. This project may take a while. I’m enjoying my present moment. But I will do my best to complete this job of tidying up the garage and I’ll try to resist the urge to hang each and every piece of the artwork up on the garage walls!
© Copyright 2006 Catholic Exchange
Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle, mother of five, writes from Connecticut. She is the author of Catholic Prayer Book for Mothers, published by Our Sunday Visitor. It was encouraged by Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta and given a blessing by Pope John Paul II. It is available through her website www.donnacooperoboyle.com.
