The Gift of Time

I can't believe that it's almost Father's Day.  I just finished celebrating Mother's Day! For my Mother's Day gift, my daughter had bought us tickets to see the Emerson String Quartet play Dvorak at Chicago's Symphony Center and the concert was yesterday. 

What a fantastic time we had! I realize that not everyone likes classical music but for me it was almost a spiritual experience.

Dvorak is known for using folk melodies as a basis for more complicated pieces. At times those melodies bathed me in a stream of warm comforting honey. Later, as the pace of the music picked up, notes galloped and chirped their way into my consciousness and lifted me to a sunrise in the Sangre De Cristo mountains. The violinists, violas, cellist, and pianist (for one of the pieces) enchanted us for more than 2 hours. To me time stood still and I wanted it never to end. 

There was no place I would have rather been than listening to my favorite music with one of my best friends, my daughter. And when she draped her arms around my shoulders and rested her head on mine I took a snapshot of the moment in my memory. Now that she's an adult, such displays of affection are less common than they used to be.

I'm no music critic and I don't know all the ins and outs of classical music, but I'm sharing this moment, just so that when you think about what to get your dad for Father's Day, perhaps you might consider spending time with him doing something that he loves.

The time is so much more valuable than the stuff! It really is!