Gift of Time

"It's funny that pirates were always going around searching for treasure, and they never realized that the real treasure was the fond memories they were creating." -Jack Handy
It never ceased to amaze me the way Dad always found time to do things with us. It wasn't until years later that I thought about the fact that he was working at least eight hour days, serving as a brand new bishop in a ward he didn't know and he still found time to coach my basketball team.
One Christmas in particular sticks out to me. Normally Mom and Dad did a great job of throwing me off the trail of my presents, but this year I was sure that Dad had bought a remote control airplane. But the catch was, it wasn't mine. It was for me and Dad. I think he was more excited about it than I was. At the time I thought that he was using me as an excuse to buy himself a really cool toy, but in retrospect I know that he did it because he knew it was a way to spend quality time with a son who was quickly transforming into a teenager. We spent hours together preparing to fly that thing. We put it together, built things for it, went to the hobby shop to talk to the pros, and took turns taxiing the plane up and down the street in front of our house.
The problem was, neither of us actually knew how to fly it. But, the laws of aviation be darned, we decided one day that we were going to do it. So we took it over to the high school track to make our maiden voyage into the wild blue yonder. Dad tried first but couldn't seem to get it off the ground. At my young age I didn't have a strong understanding of lift and how airplanes managed to stay in the air for extended periods of time. So I grabbed the controls, pushed the throttle all the way forward, pulled the flaps all the way back and watched my plane climb up high into the air. Then I watched my plane stall and spiral back down toward the track. At this point in time I panicked and shoved the controls back into Dad's hands. He was not able to save it. After maybe five seconds of flight, I watched our plane nosedive into the grass, scattering the engine among other valuable parts all over the football field.
Reflecting on that day now, I'm amazed that never once did I hear any kind of scolding or negative comments from either of my parents for having smashed what I'm sure was an expensive toy. In fact, we all just kind of laughed about it. Unlike the pirates that Jack Handy talks about, Dad realized that the memories we had made were far more important than the plane itself.