panties stick to the wall, I had fun.
The jokes were bad enough, but his father’s feeling the need to explain them was just way, way too much.
Then there was the inevitable question: You gettin’ any? And the obligatory warning: Don’t go divin’ until you’ve put on your wet suit. No glove, no love. I’m too young for any little snot-nosed youngin’ to be callin’ me granddaddy.
It was at this age that Remington first picked up a camera for anything other than snapshots, and at this stage that he first began carrying one into the woods.
He still carried a shotgun, but more for show than anything else. The shooting he was doing involved film, not ammunition—captured life, not ended it.
—You ever get a big buck, ‘bout an eight point or better, you’ll put that camera down and have your gun ready at all times. You just wait.
His dad had waited his whole life, and it had never happened.
The last time they had been on this land together had been less than a month before Cole died. Then, it’d been his dad who’d put a camera in his hands, asking him to document the changes he had made to the land—the new trails he had carved into it, the controlled burns he had conducted, and the one hundred or so acres of timber he had cut down to help pay his wife’s medical bills.
Realizing even then how short life is, how little time we get with those we love—though not knowing just how short his dad’s life would be and how very little time they had left together—Remington had taken several shots of his dad and put together a small photojournal piece he had never shown anyone.
Amidst photographs of his dad enjoying the day and the land and the son he so loved, Remington had penned these words:
Time.
We talk about buying it or saving it, but we can do neither. We all spend it at a cost of sixty seconds a minute, sixty minutes an hour, and twenty-four hours per day. It’s running out for all of us and there’s nothing we can do about it. We can break every clock we encounter, and our lives will still continue to tick away, counting down to the bang or whimper or big silence that bookends the backside of our lives.
Time is one of the most precious resources we have—a priceless, limited, finite gift we get to do with what we want.
Some people, like my dad, spend their time leisurely, like they have a limitless supply. These people spend time, waste time, kill time. Others, like me, spend it rapidly, filling every moment. These people never have any time to spare, they’re always out of time.
How we spend our time defines who we are. What we do with our days determines our destinies.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the time we get with our loved ones.
My wife Heather’s mother died recently. Suddenly, abruptly, her time with her family and friends was over. There was no more time to do anything—not a single second.
Experiencing Heather’s loss with her has served to heighten my awareness of the brevity of life in general and our time with our parents in particular.
Twice this week I rode ATVs with my dad across acres and acres of land that’s been in our family for over seventy years—land many other James fathers and sons have traversed—and as we did I thought what a gift this time we have together is.
If things take their natural course (and there’s no guarantee they will), then my father will precede me in taking that step alone into the great unknown, the way his dad did him. At some point he will be gone and I will become a fatherless son, and all I’ll have is the time we spent together.
Time well spent together—some of it on this very same land when I was a boy and he was a god.
Knowing how limited and precious and priceless time is, I continually question the ways in which I’m spending mine. Am I using the gifts that have been entrusted to me to help others? Am I doing enough? Am I leaving the world in some small way better than I found it?
I don’t get as much time with
The jokes were bad enough, but his father’s feeling the need to explain them was just way, way too much.
Then there was the inevitable question: You gettin’ any? And the obligatory warning: Don’t go divin’ until you’ve put on your wet suit. No glove, no love. I’m too young for any little snot-nosed youngin’ to be callin’ me granddaddy.
It was at this age that Remington first picked up a camera for anything other than snapshots, and at this stage that he first began carrying one into the woods.
He still carried a shotgun, but more for show than anything else. The shooting he was doing involved film, not ammunition—captured life, not ended it.
—You ever get a big buck, ‘bout an eight point or better, you’ll put that camera down and have your gun ready at all times. You just wait.
His dad had waited his whole life, and it had never happened.
The last time they had been on this land together had been less than a month before Cole died. Then, it’d been his dad who’d put a camera in his hands, asking him to document the changes he had made to the land—the new trails he had carved into it, the controlled burns he had conducted, and the one hundred or so acres of timber he had cut down to help pay his wife’s medical bills.
Realizing even then how short life is, how little time we get with those we love—though not knowing just how short his dad’s life would be and how very little time they had left together—Remington had taken several shots of his dad and put together a small photojournal piece he had never shown anyone.
Amidst photographs of his dad enjoying the day and the land and the son he so loved, Remington had penned these words:
Time.
We talk about buying it or saving it, but we can do neither. We all spend it at a cost of sixty seconds a minute, sixty minutes an hour, and twenty-four hours per day. It’s running out for all of us and there’s nothing we can do about it. We can break every clock we encounter, and our lives will still continue to tick away, counting down to the bang or whimper or big silence that bookends the backside of our lives.
Time is one of the most precious resources we have—a priceless, limited, finite gift we get to do with what we want.
Some people, like my dad, spend their time leisurely, like they have a limitless supply. These people spend time, waste time, kill time. Others, like me, spend it rapidly, filling every moment. These people never have any time to spare, they’re always out of time.
How we spend our time defines who we are. What we do with our days determines our destinies.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the time we get with our loved ones.
My wife Heather’s mother died recently. Suddenly, abruptly, her time with her family and friends was over. There was no more time to do anything—not a single second.
Experiencing Heather’s loss with her has served to heighten my awareness of the brevity of life in general and our time with our parents in particular.
Twice this week I rode ATVs with my dad across acres and acres of land that’s been in our family for over seventy years—land many other James fathers and sons have traversed—and as we did I thought what a gift this time we have together is.
If things take their natural course (and there’s no guarantee they will), then my father will precede me in taking that step alone into the great unknown, the way his dad did him. At some point he will be gone and I will become a fatherless son, and all I’ll have is the time we spent together.
Time well spent together—some of it on this very same land when I was a boy and he was a god.
Knowing how limited and precious and priceless time is, I continually question the ways in which I’m spending mine. Am I using the gifts that have been entrusted to me to help others? Am I doing enough? Am I leaving the world in some small way better than I found it?
I don’t get as much time with
Similar Books
