Counting My Days

This past Monday evening I popped a video tape into the VCR and sat down with my brothers and sisters and watched all the old family movies that had been shot with an 8 mm camera and transferred to video tape some years ago. For you youngsters, 8 mm is what we had before video tape. There was no sound, and you actually had to send the film in to get it developed, then feed it into a projector and show it on a portable movie screen or on the wall. Yeah, I know, stone-age.

We watched birthdays and Christmas mornings and family vacations. We saw our family grow from 2 kids to 6, and our family shrink as grandparents disappeared from family gatherings as the years went by. We laughed at clothes and hairstyles and fads as we moved from the fifties through the sixties and into the seventies.

The setting was the family room of my parent’s house in Michigan. We had come from New York and St. Paul and northern Michigan to be together as a family on the night before my dad, who is suffering horribly from advanced dementia, would leave his home for the last time and move into a facility that would be able to provide adequate care. At the dinner table I think it was one of my sisters who suggested we watch the home movies. At first, I thought it was a horrible idea- it was already painful enough. “Yeah, let’s watch old family movies so we can cry some more!!” But she was right. It was a good thing to do. My dad sat in the chair, pretty much unaware of what was going on or even that all the people in the room were his children. But the man on the screen we watched was another thing. He was a twenty-seven year old walking with his two sons. He was a thirty-two year old teaching his kids how to water ski. He was running along side his son as he showed him how to ride a bike. But most of the time, he was not on the screen at all. The movies revealed what he saw as he held the camera and pointed it at his wife and sons and daughters . He was capturing his family on film. We got to see what he saw through those decades.

It was a bittersweet experience- to contrast that young man with the man he is now. I think that evening will help me to remember him not as the man who forgot my name or that I was his son, but as the man who for most of his years was full of life. Somehow, it helped to bring some joy in the midst of our deep sorrow.

Later in the evening, I found myself thinking about how quickly a life goes by. I found myself thinking about the dozens of video tapes I have of my family- each with three hours of family history, and these actually have sound! I realize how often I live as if life will just go on unchanged, but it won’t. And whether my life is being captured on film to be reviewed on some future day or not, it is nevertheless being lived and spent everyday. While this is not a new thought for me- right now there is a lot more urgency attached to it. I will live one time- and I will leave an imprint on those around me and on my world.



Moses asked God (Psalm 90) to teach him to number his days so that he could gain a heart of wisdom. This week I understand that prayer more than I have in the past, and finding myself asking God for the same thing.