Numbered Days

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

—Psalm 90:12

When my brother and I were small, there was a family from church who encouraged my parents to take family vacations. My parents had very little time and even less money, but we began a tradition of family vacations. And they were great.

When the husband and father of the family who urged us toward those vacations died far too young, we sat with his family at his funeral. There were hundreds of photographs and bits of video from family vacations, funny and sweet.

After the service my dad began to cry, the chokes and coughs of a man who seldom finds himself overcome by tears and unable to stop them. He pulled us into a circle, stretching his arms around us.

“We’ve got to be like them,” he choked. “We’ve got to take the time right now because there’s nothing more important than this.” He bent his head and cried. “We’ve got to be like that.”

Our family vacations since then have carried the weight of that day, and the weight of knowing that one day, our family will mourn the way their family did, and that we want to have the depth and breadth of memories they do.