Moments to Memories

“Boy you sure do take a lot of pictures!”

A friend of mine said this to me a couple of months back as I had stopped briefly on my bike ride along the Neuse River greenway trail to take photos of a field of daisies in full bloom. The sea of yellow against a blue sky background was more than I could pass up, so I had to stop and snap a few photos.  Who knows, I may never get to live in that moment again, so why not capture it so that I can look back later and remember?

Flashback to the 1970’s.

When I was a kid, my mom and dad sported the good old fashioned Polaroid instant camera....You know, the ones that produced “instant” photographs. Photos that were “the kind you gotta shake” (from the words of Miranda Lambert’s song “Automatic”, for anyone who didn’t catch that) I recall my mom, my brother, and me being the subject of the vast majority of those polaroid photographs, since Dad was always the one behind the camera taking most of the pictures. I thought it was so cool to watch and wait as the photos of our family slowly appeared on the square paper as the picture developed. They populated several photo albums over our growing up years with these family gems.

Fast forward to today.

At last count, my immediate family has fifteen 300 page picture albums on a shelf in our home, each one full from cover to cover with photos (the “glossy paper” kind of photos), each one telling part of the story on the timeline of our life thus far. The 15^th album was, for the most part, the last of an "era" so to speak in our household as we migrated from “printed photos” to “paperless” digital media. To date, in addition to all of the aforementioned photo albums, we have also amassed several gigabytes of digital photographs that continue to chronicle our family’s most memorable moments.

There is no doubt that the art (or hobby if you choose to refer to it as such) of photography has dramatically changed over the last 20 years or so. The technology has become far more sophisticated, while at the same time becoming more and more affordable for the consumer.  My family has graduated from the 35mm film camera that we used when my wife and I were first married, to the low end digital camera that we were able to get when my son was first born, to several improved, yet affordable, iterations of digital models as the years have progressed. It was just a couple of years ago that my lovely and caring wife braved the Black Friday line at one store for over half the night to snag an awesome deal on a higher end digital SLR camera. I must say, that camera takes some really sweet pictures!

One thing is for certain. Regardless of the year or the prevailing technology at the time, there has always been a well used camera present in the Brown household.

So what is the point of all this? Is this a poor attempt at providing the readers with a history lesson on the evolution of modern photography?

Not exactly. Stay with me for a few more minutes and I will explain.

Cameras are a must have in our family. As a matter of fact, I would go so far as to say that each type of camera that our family has owned throughout the years has been absolutely invaluable, regardless of the price tag at the time of purchase.

Why? Because cameras produce photos. Photos capture memories. And memories are priceless.

Our adventures as newlyweds. The birth of our children. Family vacations to the beach. Birthday parties and anniversaries. The excitement of Christmas morning. Performances at school and church. Softball, soccer, t-ball, and basketball games. All of these occasions, and many, many more, have found their way into the viewfinders of our cameras. No matter what type of camera we had at the time, the end result was always the same. The memory of that moment was successfully memorialized and frozen in time….in the form of a photograph.

I have noticed something sobering the older I get. Although the second hand on the clock has moved at the same speed for decades, it seems as if time is speeding by faster than ever before now, faster than my mind can comprehend really. Days become weeks. Weeks become months. Months become years. Before we know it, another year is behind us and in the history books.

At the time of this writing, I have been married to my wife and best friend for twenty years. It seems like only yesterday that we were on our first date together at the Golden Corral, both of us too nervous to eat anything. I distinctly recall nearly every detail of that day on August 27, 1994 when my wife and I said “I do” and waved to the wedding guests as we rode off as newlyweds in that antique red car, ready to start a life of our own. Cameras were flashing everywhere…documenting those priceless moments.

Then along came the kids. I can hardly wrap my brain around the fact that my daughter is twelve years old and in the seventh grade, and my son is eighteen years old and a senior in high school. It seems like only yesterday that I was holding both of them in my arms mere minutes after they made their grand entrance into this world. Preschool, kindergarten, elementary school, and all the memorable activities that go along with these milestones are already in the rear view mirror of life. We were poised with camera in hand…documenting those priceless moments.

I know that it sounds cliché, but time truly does fly by, especially when you are having fun and when you are writing life’s story via little moments like these. They are once in a lifetime moments that you will never experience again. Moments that make you laugh, cry, or smile because they happened, and because you were there to experience them in their fullness. I am so grateful when I stop and take the time to reminisce about the moments that God has allowed me to experience thus far with the ones that I love more than life itself. No amount of money can buy those memories, or bring them back, in the event that I had to miss out on them.

I would encourage you to soak up every one of those precious moments that you possibly can as life speeds by. Don’t let them slip away because you are “just too busy” or because other things suddenly become the “priority”. Stay involved and engaged with those that you love. Do those little things that will translate into wonderful stories that can be looked back on when you are old and gray, and passed on to future generations after you. Time goes by so quickly and life is very short, so make as many memories as you can.

There is a song by Kenny Chesney, one of my favorite country artists, entitled “Don’t Blink”. Many of you are very familiar with it. I really like the entire song, but I particularly appreciate the words of the chorus:

Don't blink
Just like that you're six years old and you take a nap and you
Wake up and you're twenty-five and your high school sweetheart becomes your wife
Don't blink
You just might miss your babies growing like mine did
Turning into moms and dads next thing you know your better half
Of fifty years is there in bed
And you're praying God takes you instead
Trust me friend a hundred years goes faster than you think
So don't blink

Take the time today to make absolutely certain that those little moments become memories that you and those after you will never forget.

And by all means…be sure to take lots of pictures along the way!