Just a Moment

I’m not sure where to begin. I promised myself that I would just start writing and see what happens. I think it's ironic that I'm making a go of this late at night . . . I am a morning person. Maybe that’s where I should begin.

I am a morning person. I get it from my Father, the fisherman, the farmer and dairy rancher’s son. I love to hear the birds sing and feel the fresh air of the early morning. There’s something about it that says “Get up! You’ll miss the opportunity if you wait! Catch me while you can!” What is THE opportunity? It’s the opportunity of the moment. I hate missing moments. Moments are the stuff of life. They are the things I miss when I sleep in, watch TV., spend too much time in the bathroom or tying my shoes. I want to collect every one of the them, and I’m always in a hurry because I’m anxious to get to the moment. How do I know a moment when I experience one? I just do. It’s how I feel when I’m in it—interactive, aware. I feel it in my head and heart. I just know it’s a moment that changes my life from meaningless to meaningful. One little moment at a time is how it works, at least most of the time. There are large moments, too. Like the large moment that I walked out of the back door of the Los Angeles temple on May 6, 1995. Arm in arm, David and I stepped through the enormous wrought iron doors and stood on the steps to greet our waiting family. David looked like Carey Grant with his gelled and parted hair, Roween told me later. “What’s your name?” my father, the humorist, called out to me. In that moment, as I took my breath to answer, I realized everything had changed. I brought my free hand to my hips and answered with gusto, “I’m Mrs. Hale!” What a moment! What a memory!

Most moments are little, though. They are often forgotten, and rarely included in a life history. However, it’s the little moments that make us who we are. They show how we spend our time, what we do or say in an instant. They can also be little course corrections that curve our path of life and turn things around. For good or bad, of course. Of course. A lot of little moments should be forgotten—mistakes are human. Some are worth holding on to remember, just so we remember the foul taste of it, and don’t include a part of it in the next moments. There are thousands of small moments I wouldn’t like to repeat, but I have fun remembering them. Kind of like a sour pickle. I’m sure I don’t want to have another one like that, but I inevitably do. There was a small moment like that a couple of days ago, but I’ll tell that one later.