Memories

Funny thing about memories… I don’t like to remember the bad stuff. I don’t think I’m alone in that. I like remembering the good, happy times. The times that bring a smile to my face. The times that fill my heart with joy and love.

Like many, I enjoy the Timehop app. If you aren’t familiar, it compiles your activity from your social media streams – like Facebook and Twitter – and shows you what you shared a year or two or more ago.   Most of what’s shared via the app is good and happy things I find myself sharing again. Sometimes though… it highlights things that were happy but tied to less happy occurrences and I’m faced with remembering things that make me a little sad.   Not terribly sad but a twinge of regret or sadness lingers for a moment before I’m distracted again… SQUIRREL!

And that’s part of life, right?  The happy interlaced with the sad… things end and bring about new beginnings… 

It dawned on me the other day that my babies who haven’t been babies for over a decade aren’t getting any younger… and there will come a day when “hanging with mom” is really the last place they want to be.  {It’s already started in fact, but I’m in denial… } 

I have amazing memories of my childhood and I hope that I’m helping them create their own magical memories… but it’s not just about the trips we take {although they are pretty darn great} or the stuff I buy them {although those things are pretty darn great too} but the time… the time spent together playing dominoes or scrabble or jenga… the time spent in the car singing along with the iPod… the time spent together doing the boring and mundane.  I hope that those memories bring a smile to their face when they need it.

I have some incredible memories that I can draw from… but one in particular jumped out at me the other day when I was driving with the Giant.

It was early… I was only half caffeinated… and every radio station was pissing me off.  EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. was playing commercial after commercial after commercial… and I hate commercials.  And then I switched to the local NPR station because the news is better than the commercials.  WAY better.

As we listed to the latest story that escapes me right now but was entertaining at the moment, I recalled my childhood in a fond way.  You see, when all of us were in the car, mom controlled the radio.  It was either oldies or country or pop depending on the year and her mood but it was always music.  Those times when it was just my dad and I?  NPR.  Always NPR.  That’s where I gained my love for the Car Talk brothers… where I learned what made my dad laugh… where I learned what’s important to him.  It didn’t matter what we were doing or where we were going, those silent moments heading to Home Depot or Autozone are fresher in my memory than I would have expected them to be.  Simple moments that seemed insignificant at the time but years later are treasured.

While relishing in the memory of a simpler time, Giant pipes up “Reminds me of Padad” using the moniker he picked for my dad when he was first learning to talk.  I smiled and was about to reply the same to him when he busts out with “And dad.  This is the only station dad listens to”

Way to ruin a moment son.  

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