Today’s post makes me teary. And I’m not a teary kind of gal–I don’t normally wear my emotions on my sleeves.

My friend Mindy wrote a blog post a couple of weeks ago. See. . . she lost one of her son’s to a battle with brain cancer. She knows the true value of living well, because she’s unable to live well physically on this Earth anymore with one of her children. She knows each day is one day closer to getting to see him again–but she also knows the importance now of living life to it’s fullest with her remaining children here on Earth.

She wrote, “We can honor Ben’s memory by LIVING. And living WELL. Do something to enjoy the presence of those you’ve been gifted to grow alongside. To appreciate what makes them unique. To bask in their flaws. Because in this life, we only get one shot to live.”

And so, today I marvel at my oldest son. Sometimes it seems like our lives are going so quickly that we hardly interact in a day, and that’s so heartbreaking. School . . .then one event or another–small group, AWANA, a sporting event. And before you know it, it’s bedtime already. When I can, I like to try to be intentional-most days, it’s difficult. But other days I make it a top priority. Last night, we packed up the whole family and headed to Brayden’s game. It was the first one of three that I had been able to go to. It was COLD–low fifties and super windy. We had hats and gloves and blankets. The wind whipped my hair around like a rag doll. But still, I watched my boy play. And I took pictures. LOTS of them. Because if there’s one thing that I know, I know that moments are fleeting. Moments are forgotten. Moments are sacred.

But these moments here in this blog post? The ones that I took and saved on my hard drive and will have until we are all old and gray? They are mine to keep. My first born son, just shy of his eighth birthday, playing baseball. In his cute little uniform shirt and his one batting glove because we lost the other, and his grey under armour pants from Savers, and his garage sale baseball bat, and official Pirates hat and his baseball glove that we got him last year for his birthday.

And watching him play is so much me enjoying the presence of those I have been gifted to grow alongside. This thing called life is precious. Live well.