Several years ago, I developed some slides that my grandfather had kept for years. Among those slides was a picture of an old vehicle parked on a snowy mountain pass. This picture did not seem like anything special, just an old black and white photo of a car on a mountain pass during a snowstorm. I glanced at the photo, put it aside, and went on to catalog the remaining photos in an attempt to identify the people in them. Later, when I showed the slides to my dad, he stopped at that particular slide. He recounted that he was there that day, looking back at my grandfather as he took the picture. They had had some tire trouble that trip, as was highly common in those days, and that particular shot was taken at the top of a mountain pass in a blizzard. Mother and father on a trip with their young boy over a mountain pass. My dad recounted that this picture was highly significant, because it represented a massive change in the family. You see, this was the day that my grandfather decided to take his family to Grand Junction, Colorado, so he could practice law there. This was the trip they had made driving toward the western slope of the Rockies to find a new place to settle and call home. If you look closely in the photo, you can see my dad looking back through the window, and the back seat full of what remained of their household items.
So this picture captured a moment in time, a moment that has great significance in the history of my family. You see, my grandfather changed his station in life, and through this and many other decisions, was able to raise the family to be far better off than from where they had come. Apple farmers, ranch hands, miners, brick masons, and a few moonshiners perhaps, had now become a family of attorneys and no longer poor, but upper middle class. Many family histories are marked with these types of moments. The key decisions. The moments in life where great risk is taken, and one generation takes a giant leap forward. If you look back in your life, after all is said and done, you will notice that your life can be best defined by key moments like this—where an important decision was made, where tragedy struck, or a great blessing was bestowed. Key moments, whatever the result, are always precious to those who experienced them.
I was reflecting today on what the big moments are in my life, and how well they might be documented. Will there be a day when I can show my son a picture of a moment like this and describe the circumstances behind the event? Will I be able to relate the key moment when a decision was made that would impact the rest of my life and potentially generations to come? I sure hope so.
I realized today that as I catalogued some of these in my mind, how precious few of them there were. In fact, my life is probably summarized rather succinctly by only three or four key moments that have defined who I am. When I look back at those now with fondness, I realize that I am not done yet. I am in the process now of creating, sculpting, and even manufacturing new key moments that will define me and my family with more clarity as time progresses. Key moments, as it seems, are the building blocks by which we build a life well lived.
So I ask the question now, as I sit here pondering this subject. What are the key moments in your life? Do you have them documented in any fashion? Have you shared them with your loved ones? Do you know the key moments in your parents’ lives, or perhaps your grandparents’ lives? If you stop and think about it, when you finally lay down to die, it will be these key moments, and nothing else, that really survives you. So here I am telling a story about a key moment in the life of Warren F. Reams. I am wondering—what grandchild will be doing the same for you one day?
