Moments.
They show themselves in the morning cup of coffee, through a friend, in the warm sun. They resonate to the deepest part of my soul. They surface throughout the day, brush past my emotions, and linger. They are stories of people who have loved and been loved. Moments. They nudge.
I recently read about a mother from Edmonton who was living her last Mother’s Day. On the front of the Edmonton Journal was a picture of her and her two kids, 13 year old son Brett and 16 year old daughter Taryn.
Her name was Tamara Campbell. She talked about loving her kids and, in her unique circumstance, about taking no moment for granted. The picture in the headline of the article shows her smiling and being close to her kids. And in that smile I see an authentic love of a mother who cherishes every moment with her children and loved ones. This picture was, after all, taken before her last Mother’s Day. She was fully aware of this. She had terminal cancer.
She passed away two days after Mother’s Day, two days after sharing her story with the world.
This shared moment has deeply impacted me. Her story touched the community of Edmonton. And yet it was compellingly simple. She loved her kids, her family, her friends. She served as a nurse at a children’s hospital, caring for families with kids afflicted with cancer. Most importantly, she loved. This is her legacy.
It is in these moments of simple realization that I am drawn to understand what is truly important. I spend so much of my day dreaming of something I’d love to own, or an activity I’d like to do, or who I’d like to talk to, or how much money I’d like to make. As Henry Thoreau wrote, It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about?
The simple reality is this: God surrounds me with people that I can love right now. My legacy is not who I coached, or what I accomplished, or what I built or scratched together. My legacy is who I loved and how I did it.
So as I plan out my next steps in today or tomorrow, and schedule how I am planning to live the next few moments or days of my life, I need to remember the simple realities. The legacy of my life. I need to remember to play with my kids with reckless abandon, to love my family with boundless passion, to embrace my friends with grateful joy, and to welcome those strangers that have been put in my path with endless hope.
These are the moments that move me.
(If you’d like to read the original story, it’s found here)