The Sands of Time

My family and I recently took a quick trip up to Colorado. We have a thing for visiting state parks or national parks where we travel so while there, we visited Great Sand Dunes National Park. We spent the morning climbing the massive dunes, renting a sled, racing up and down the sandy slopes, and just spending quality time together. It was the kind of morning that makes a good family photo and an even better memories.

But that wasn't the real reason for the trip.

You see, earlier in January, my younger brother, Lee, passed away. We knew, because of his health, that it might come sooner rather than later — but knowing doesn't make it easy. It was a difficult time for all of us. A couple of months before he passed, I had written a blog post on estate planning (view article here), and I'd included a photo of the two of us with our grandfather in Colorado together. I had no idea at the time that I'd soon be living out some of the very strategies I'd written about.

The Cabin Near Cotopaxi

Growing up as a kid, my mom, a school teacher with summers off, would load up my brother and me, and sometimes other family members or friends, and drive us up to our grandparents' cabin near Cotopaxi, Colorado. Before you picture something glamorous, let me stop you there: it was an A-frame cabin with no electricity and no running water. But to us, it was the best place on earth.

My brother and I spent countless times climbing over granite boulders, riding the coal train in Cripple Creek, and shooting pellets at empty Coke cans from the deck above. Because of all that, the cabin became one of my favorite places in the world — and his too, filled with a lifetime of good memories.

Before he passed, Lee fortunately told us he wanted to be cremated and buried on the family land near the cabin. So, we made the trip. My wife, kids, mom, and I piled into the truck, with my aunt and uncle following close behind for the sixteen-hour drive north.

Coming Home, One Last Time

While we were there, we did what our family has always done at that cabin. We played dominoes late into the evening. We laughed more than I expected to. And I watched my own kids climb the same granite rocks my brother and I had climbed, and sometimes slid off with scraped knees, decades earlier.

A couple of days into the trip, I had the honor of burying my brother next to one of those granite rocks we used to play on as kids, underneath a mighty ponderosa pine. From that spot, you can look out over the valley below and see the Sangre de Cristo mountain range stretched out in front of you. If I'm lucky enough to end up in a place half as peaceful, with a view even half as beautiful, I'll consider myself fortunate. It was a surreal few days — full of laughter, tears, and love, often all at once.

The Sands of Time

Standing at the top of a sand dune a few days later, watching my kids race down the slope, it was hard not to think about how sand moves. Grain by grain, it looks like it's barely shifting at all. But step back, and entire dunes have reshaped themselves without you noticing the moment it happened.

Time works the same way. It slips by in the same quiet, grain-by-grain way. Summers at a cabin with no electricity, a brother who was once a kid beside you on a granite rock, kids of your own now climbing that same rock. You don't feel the years pass so much as you look up one day and realize the dune has shifted and moved.

I don't say this to be gloomy. I say it because it's true, and because Lee's passing has made it impossible to ignore. Time is not something we get to bank for later. The trips, the dominoes, the pellet guns and Coke cans, the sixteen-hour drives — none of it was ever guaranteed, and none of it will be there forever.

So here's what I've taken from this trip, more than anything else: go on the adventure. Take the time off if you can. Play the game of dominoes, even the late, silly, laughter-filled kind with friends or family. Let your kids climb the rocks you climbed. Because the sand doesn't stop moving for anyone, and the only real choice we have is what we do while it does.

I’ll leave you with a quote I read in a book years ago that has always stuck with me by Bob Moawad. “You can't make footprints in the sands of time if you're sitting on your butt. And who wants to make buttprints in the sands of time?”

Cherish the people you love. Cherish the time you have with them. It passes far more quickly than any of us would like to admit.

The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or firm.