Last evening I was watching television, specifically a movie showing a father driving his family home after a long weekend, and upon getting home late at night the father carried his young daughter in and tucked her into bed. It wouldn’t come as a surprise for anyone who knows me very well that I had to stop and relive those memories of me doing the very same thing when our children were younger. And then wondering what positive lessons I could find in what I just saw.

As I sat there basking in those sweet memories, it dawned on me just how long it had been since I carried my children to bed. And the more I thought about it, I realized that while I logically knew my children were growing, I had never consciously stopped and reconciled there would come a point in my life where they would either be too big or wouldn’t need me to carry them anymore. Instead, I realized it had ceased-stopped-halted. It seems like it was yesterday.

Life is interesting, we live our life day to day, often without recognizing or appreciating any apparent or meaningful change. It is only with the passage of sufficient time that we realize how much time has actually passed by, and how much things have actually changed, and the significance of that change. And here is the real wake up call, and that is once those times have passed, that moment in time, and that opportunity is gone and there is no way to go back and un-change it.

It is kind of like watching a ship leave harbor, going out into the ocean, as it is close to the shore, the ship is so big and so present, and the ocean so big that it is hard to imagine, it will ever move out of sight. Then slowly but surely the ship moves further away, and its movement occurs in such a way that it is hard to comprehend the ship is moving at all. However little by little the ship moves into first a blur and then suddenly it sinks below the horizon, and it’s gone.

Without getting emotional it was hard last night to reconcile that for as good as those memories were of carrying my children in and tucking them in, I will never again be in this position. Yes, I anticipate there will be grandchildren, and I can’t imagine that won’t be great, but as far as carrying my children that proverbial ship has sailed and will never again make its appearance.

So, what is the lesson? The lesson: the opportunities of yesterday are gone, for now and for all times, and they will never make an encore appearance, but remember there are the opportunities of today that are present, and it is dependent upon us, to make the most of today. And here is the thing, today will all too quickly become tomorrow, and with it will be lost today’s opportunities.