Special Moments

You can't recreate special moments, you can only create new ones.

It was my birthday recently, and I was blessed with a wonderful celebration. After a morning filled with bouquets of lovely flowers, email, voicemail, and social media birthday wishes and time spent with my mother and dear friends, we topped the night off (an unusual evening out) with a DELICIOUS array of vegetarian sushi and sparkling wine (Sofia--a new favorite, though I feel a traitor to my French roots). We gobbled it all down in 30 minutes to make the next showing of the latest Harry Potter movie -- I was on cloud nine, happy as a lark. What a wonderful day.

Three days later I wanted that same experience again. So, I picked up the same sushi from the restaurant, got those cute little cans of Sparkling Sofia, sat out on the patio with my friend and my Maman just inside the door in her room -- and what I discovered, it wasn't the same. It was nice, it was pleasant, but it didn't have the thrill of those birthday moments.

This got me thinking about our parents, as they age, and how we remember holidays and great times together, going shopping with Mom, or a ballgame with Dad, and now we grieve because they are lying in bed and can no longer walk, or they don't recognize us anymore. And we wish we could relive those special moments -- but we can't. We'll never be able to make them happen again, they are gone forever.

But as I discovered that same afternoon on the balcony, we can experience new special moments. My girlfriend, Kathy, and I splashed our champagne with cranberry juice and I poured some for my mother in her plastic cup with a straw. "How is it?" I asked. "Delicious," she said with a big smile on her face, "Absolutely delicious."

That was a new special moment.