How to Ready Children for the Future: Spend Time Across the Miles
“Across the miles.”
It is an idea that has been expressed as a sentiment in greeting cards for many years. We normally think of the phrase in the context of expressing our care for others, no matter the distance. When thinking of the literal meaning, however, I am reminded of a sweet family that I met recently, the Smiths, who love to spend time together camping in their home away from home. While I met them in Myrtle Beach, their adventures were to take them (across the miles) to Warrior Path State Park in Tennessee, where they had never been, before returning home.
The idea, “across the miles” is a perfect analogy for parenthood. A passenger train has the capability of traversing many miles in a very short span of time. As a train begins to move out of the station, it moves slowly. As we gaze out of the window at the scene that unfolds before us, we can take it all in. It feels like we have plenty of time – like we will not have to worry about missing one detail. As that train begins to speed forward, however, the images that were, earlier, so clearly focused quickly become a blur. Parenthood offers the same startling revelation, but the speed with which our children grow up in that blur is astounding.
As I planned this family portrait session with Emily, I realized I knew her (although I really didn’t)…I understood her…I had been where she was. I knew what it was like to blink, only to find – when my eyes opened again – a man, where a boy had been. Emily expressed how important it was for her to have these images of her and Nate with their growing children, Addie, Elleigh, and Andy. I remembered what it was like to make sure I got those images – at every stage of my child’s life. I knew she would feel the same way. Now, when I look at the images of Emily with her arms wrapped around her girls or Andy, or linked with them – arm in arm, I am thankful she has those moments captured. When I look at Nate twirling his daughters or standing back-to-back with Andy in the “serious pose”, I love that the memories are memorialized. I laugh with them at the “cheek sandwich” images or the ones where I caught the children with their parents in pure joy.
In years to come, as they look back on these images and think about the actual miles they have traveled during their adventures, I hope the Smith family will think fondly on these moments in the figurative journey “across the miles” of the life of their family. I hope Addie, Elleigh, and Andy will remember what it felt like that day – to walk hand in hand, to be in the warmth of their mother’s embrace, and to be safely in the hands of their father, and this will give them the foundation from which to venture out…across the miles…in their own lives.
Blessings ~
Lisa