"Austin, will you play with me?"
If I had to rank the things I hear the most frequently, this would probably be at the top. It comes with having a little sister who has lots of energy. Kambree spares no time. The second I'm home it is time to play toys.
I'm not particularly good at Barbies, Shopkins, My Little Pony, or Roblox. I couldn't even tell you how to play those games or really what they are. All I know is you take what toys they hand you and you just go with the flow.
It would be so easy to say no. To say that I don't want to. I could watch Netflix, hang out with friends, play the piano, adventure around town. Naps always sound great. My Mom would tell me to go on a date so I don't end up single forever - actually, my Dad would say that too.
But when I am asked to play, I try to never say no.
That's because I know that someday, I won't be asked that question again. At least not by her.
Someday, she'll grow up and have friends and activities and those days of hearing that tiny little voice asking me to play with toys will be gone. That doesn't mean the future is full of decay, rather the opposite - it is as bright as ever, augmented at the prospect of endless opportunities. Yet, you have to face the truth - days like this will not last forever.
I notice changes in everyone. All the kids are a tad taller, voices a little deeper. My parents aren't quite as young as they used to be, though they're certainly not old yet.
Yet, each time I wish I could say to each of them, "Don't ever grow old, Dad. Don't ever grow old, Mom. Don't ever grow old, Joseph. Bailee, Tanner, Colton, Kambree. Don't ever grow old, little one," because next time I see them, they won't be so little even if that means being just a tad bit older. Sometimes I wish I could go back and say that to myself.
I have a framed photo on my dresser. The picture was probably taken 18 years ago. My Mom and I were out boating at Huntington Reservoir near Price. When I study that photograph I realize she really hasn't changed a whole lot.
Then you look at that thin little boy with the silky brown hair. He has a timid smile. He liked to read, a mind filled with an imagination from all the books he had read. Dreams filled with sweet childish fantasies, toys and friends. He probably thought about school and what he was going to do at recess or with his buddies. His most sizable worry had to have been whether he would have the peanut butter & jelly sandwich for lunch or the chicken nuggets. Not long after that photo was taken he was about to go flying off the tube into the lake. I remember that day well!
Then I look up from that photograph into my mirror and see a 6'1", 219 pound, 23 year old man staring back at me. Hazel eyes. Brown hair cropped and carefully swept to the right, a missionary's haircut even years later, accented by thick, dark eyebrows. A few more scars. Possibly a nearly invisible shadow of whiskers after a long week of finals. A mind filled with imagination of what the future holds and reflections on what I have learned, the places an I have seen, the people I have met, the things I have survived. Nightly dreams filled with chemical reactions, laboratory procedures, and occasionally that I've run out of bread (something college students are prone to dream about). Not sure which of those is the nightmare - maybe all the above.
Every time I step into my room to set down my bag and see that picture, the thought always crosses my mind, 'Where did that little boy on that boat go?' I think about how happy his childhood was and sometimes wish, for just a moment, that I could part the curtain of time and peer back into his life, to see him - me - again. Could that boy have had any clue what his life would bring him? He would grow older, a bit wiser, a lot taller. He would learn to play the guitar, then the trumpet, then the piano, then the organ, then the mandolin. He would gain friends and lose others. He would experience the pleasures and ills of life. He would finish school, become a missionary, a college graduate.
In time he would spend cold nights searching dark streets and knocking on hundreds of doors for anyone willing to hear a message he had been called to carry, in a place that seemed far away from home. Sometimes that would be in a foreign language.
He would spend nights with friends joking around and playing games. Somedays he would find himself leaned over a laptop into the early morning hours with bloodshot eyes and class in just a few hours, other times waking up in the night on the couch with his chemistry book in hand.
He would witness "the treasure that waits for a man to find, the peaks of mountains that reach out and touch the sky...and the desert where dreams have died."1 He would have more in store for him than he ever thought imaginable. And someday, somewhere I surely will look back at myself now and wonder if I had any idea what lied in store for me "not now, but in the coming years."2
Someday my name will be Dad. That's an interesting, nearly unfathomable thought. In some ways I wish I could stay twenty-three forever, but I also know that there are some little children in a few years that will be my little ones. If I stayed this age forever, I couldn't ever see them and the joy that comes with them. I wouldn't ever experience getting married, holding them as babies and raising them up going to their games, plays, recitals, watching them grow. I'll surely want them to stay little forever, and I suppose one day as I cradle each of those babes to sleep I'll quietly say, "Don't ever grow old, little one." But I know they have to grow older to experience the joys I have.
My entire point in all of this nostalgic sauntering is this: time is both a friend and foe and it will keep ticking by whether you want it to or not. We can't know the joy of the future without letting go of the present. That is why it is so important to enjoy your life right now and not let it pass you by without living it to the fullest. That way you can look back and say that you did everything you wanted to do. You won't be like "those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way."3
A coworker recently asked me, "How many ball players do you know that are going to get up, miss the first swing, and go sit back down?" I replied, "None, they've got at least three chances."
"Exactly. If they did that they would look back years later and wonder "what if" they had just taken another swing or two? You don't want to have regret, to let opportunities pass you by and think, years later, "what if?"
So when the present time comes with all its opportunities, swing with all your might.
Live with no "what ifs". What do you have to lose? Enjoy now - enjoy today. As bright as the future is, don't sacrifice the present for it. When it comes time for "greater things than these"4, move on knowing you've taken every opportunity and ran with it. This year, if you don't do anything else, write every day down in your journal - even the most trying of days, even the ones you don't think were significant - so you can remember it when you're old. You won't ever regret that. Then, when the twilight of your life arrives and all the years of your existence flash before you, a soul ready to ascend to glorious, celestial heights - smile, knowing that you lived the life you were given to its fullest and "sing your death song like a hero going home."3
Happy New Year, all.
1. "The Pursuit of Knowledge", Zack Hemsey
2. "Not Now, But in the Coming Years", Maxwell N. Cornelius
3. "Die Like a Hero Going Home", Tecumseh
4. Mormon 8:12
If I had to rank the things I hear the most frequently, this would probably be at the top. It comes with having a little sister who has lots of energy. Kambree spares no time. The second I'm home it is time to play toys.
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| Halloween, 2012 |
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| Playing with toys, 2015 |
I'm not particularly good at Barbies, Shopkins, My Little Pony, or Roblox. I couldn't even tell you how to play those games or really what they are. All I know is you take what toys they hand you and you just go with the flow.
It would be so easy to say no. To say that I don't want to. I could watch Netflix, hang out with friends, play the piano, adventure around town. Naps always sound great. My Mom would tell me to go on a date so I don't end up single forever - actually, my Dad would say that too.
But when I am asked to play, I try to never say no.
That's because I know that someday, I won't be asked that question again. At least not by her.
Someday, she'll grow up and have friends and activities and those days of hearing that tiny little voice asking me to play with toys will be gone. That doesn't mean the future is full of decay, rather the opposite - it is as bright as ever, augmented at the prospect of endless opportunities. Yet, you have to face the truth - days like this will not last forever.
 |
| MTC, February 2013 |
I notice changes in everyone. All the kids are a tad taller, voices a little deeper. My parents aren't quite as young as they used to be, though they're certainly not old yet.
 |
| Manti Utah, June 2015 |
I have a framed photo on my dresser. The picture was probably taken 18 years ago. My Mom and I were out boating at Huntington Reservoir near Price. When I study that photograph I realize she really hasn't changed a whole lot.
Then you look at that thin little boy with the silky brown hair. He has a timid smile. He liked to read, a mind filled with an imagination from all the books he had read. Dreams filled with sweet childish fantasies, toys and friends. He probably thought about school and what he was going to do at recess or with his buddies. His most sizable worry had to have been whether he would have the peanut butter & jelly sandwich for lunch or the chicken nuggets. Not long after that photo was taken he was about to go flying off the tube into the lake. I remember that day well!
 |
| Mom and I, Huntington, Utah, approx. 1998 |
 |
| Medical school interview, Cedar City, Utah, November 2017 |
In time he would spend cold nights searching dark streets and knocking on hundreds of doors for anyone willing to hear a message he had been called to carry, in a place that seemed far away from home. Sometimes that would be in a foreign language.
He would spend nights with friends joking around and playing games. Somedays he would find himself leaned over a laptop into the early morning hours with bloodshot eyes and class in just a few hours, other times waking up in the night on the couch with his chemistry book in hand.
He would witness "the treasure that waits for a man to find, the peaks of mountains that reach out and touch the sky...and the desert where dreams have died."1 He would have more in store for him than he ever thought imaginable. And someday, somewhere I surely will look back at myself now and wonder if I had any idea what lied in store for me "not now, but in the coming years."2
 |
| Dad and I, Idaho Falls, Idaho, 1996 |
Someday my name will be Dad. That's an interesting, nearly unfathomable thought. In some ways I wish I could stay twenty-three forever, but I also know that there are some little children in a few years that will be my little ones. If I stayed this age forever, I couldn't ever see them and the joy that comes with them. I wouldn't ever experience getting married, holding them as babies and raising them up going to their games, plays, recitals, watching them grow. I'll surely want them to stay little forever, and I suppose one day as I cradle each of those babes to sleep I'll quietly say, "Don't ever grow old, little one." But I know they have to grow older to experience the joys I have.
 |
| Mom and I, Utah, December 1995 |
 |
| Oakdale, California, 2013 |
My entire point in all of this nostalgic sauntering is this: time is both a friend and foe and it will keep ticking by whether you want it to or not. We can't know the joy of the future without letting go of the present. That is why it is so important to enjoy your life right now and not let it pass you by without living it to the fullest. That way you can look back and say that you did everything you wanted to do. You won't be like "those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way."3
 |
| Martin's Cove, Wyoming, July 2010 |
"Exactly. If they did that they would look back years later and wonder "what if" they had just taken another swing or two? You don't want to have regret, to let opportunities pass you by and think, years later, "what if?"
 |
| Dad and I, Salt Lake City, Utah, approx. 2005 |
Live with no "what ifs". What do you have to lose? Enjoy now - enjoy today. As bright as the future is, don't sacrifice the present for it. When it comes time for "greater things than these"4, move on knowing you've taken every opportunity and ran with it. This year, if you don't do anything else, write every day down in your journal - even the most trying of days, even the ones you don't think were significant - so you can remember it when you're old. You won't ever regret that. Then, when the twilight of your life arrives and all the years of your existence flash before you, a soul ready to ascend to glorious, celestial heights - smile, knowing that you lived the life you were given to its fullest and "sing your death song like a hero going home."3
Happy New Year, all.
1. "The Pursuit of Knowledge", Zack Hemsey
2. "Not Now, But in the Coming Years", Maxwell N. Cornelius
3. "Die Like a Hero Going Home", Tecumseh
4. Mormon 8:12
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