The collection of life's breathtaking moments

We all have them. Those unexpected moments when we are overwhelmed with emotion. The memory of the moment is becomes an indelible part of our lives, as vivid sensually as the actual event. They can still evoke an emotional response just recalling them.

Now, the emotion is not always a good one. It's the intensity of the emotion, whether it is anger, grief, fear, wonder, or love, that fundamentally changes you. The event becomes a watershed moment in your life, where you are forced to travel a new path because of its profound effect.

How we respond to these moments can say quite a bit about us at that point in our lives. One moment colors all the others that follow.

We should appreciate these moments.

I'm going to share only a few of these moments from my life. They are intensely personal, even if others view them as ho-hum, run-of-the-mill happenings. What matters is that the experience was strong and it was ours.

1) When I held Lacie in my arms at Tripler Army Medical Center in the wee small hours of the morning of October 15th, 1985. Her mother had been in labor for three days. It took a dramatic drop in blood pressure and Lacie's slowed heartbeat before the emergency C-section was called. I was shoved out of the way. An hour later, I got to hold my daughter. I was exhausted. And like any new parent, I couldn't believe how tiny and fragile she was. She was mine and she was beautiful and I got to feed her and I will never forget it. My happy tears dropped on her pretty little face.

2) When I moved to Seattle to be with Jocelyn. I hadn't seen her in months. I just remember the intensity of feeling when I saw her and kissed her. Her red mane (you have to see her hair to understand) and her large brown eyes...I still have that image. My entire being tensed, in a good way, when I kissed her. This was what it was like to be at the tippy top of Maslowe's hierarchy of needs. I was self-actualizing beyond possibility. That's when I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. (And that I was a business geek extraordinaire for using a Maslowe reference. Sheesh.)

3) Those first two were pretty big, and I have plenty more of various intensities, but I should slow it down with a fairly simple one. I moved to Hawaii as a member of the US Air Force in 1982. I wound up living there until the fall of 1991. Shortly after I bought a car, I took a drive over the Pali Highway early one Saturday morning. The photo above doesn't do it justice, but those accordian looking green volcanic mountainsides face northeast. When you leave the second of two Pali Highway tunnels (headed windward) the road takes you so that these stunning emerald hills are right there in your windshield view. The morning sun lit them up. As a midwestern boy, I had never seen anything like it. To this day, that image is the standard of natural beauty for me.

Well, there's a sample. There are many others. Not all of them were so positively strong. But we can't ignore the negative. They are, after all, part of us. But for now, let's focus on the positive.

Tell me about your indelible breathtaking moments. If you don't want to leave them in a comment, feel free to email me. I won't judge you...who am I? But I would love to hear what positive things have made you, you.