In the Blink of an Eye
Why I cherish every moment with my kids
by Greg Asimakoupoulos

I forget who warned me not to blink. But I now realize it was someone who knew what he was talking about. How I wish I had heeded that fellow father's caution. But, alas, I didn't. In the millisecond it takes an eyelid to flutter shut and re-open, the unexpected occurs. A little life fresh from heaven becomes a college freshman.

As I drove home from Holland, Michigan, to Chicago that warm August afternoon, I was blinking again. This time I was blinking back tears on a three-hour drive that seemed to take twice as long. Dads, it's true. Our wives aren't the only ones who feel a punch in the gut when we watch our kids begin preschool or their first year at the university.

Having just deposited my firstborn on the steps of a dormitory, I began making withdrawal after withdrawal from a memory bank I'd opened 18 years before. It seemed like only the year before that I'd driven my bright-eyed, black-haired baby girl home from the hospital, snuggled in her car seat next to her mother. I think my eyes were leaking that day, too. Blink.

I could've sworn it was only a month earlier I was chauffeuring Kristin to her first day of first grade. Blink. I'm absolutely positive it was only the week before I was toting that little third-grader to Bible camp for her first taste of life away from home. Blink. And wasn't it only yesterday I drove her to the Secretary of State's office on her 16th birthday to get her long-awaited driver's license? Blink.

Memories flooded my mind as tears rolled down my cheeks. Drives to the doctor. Drives to Nana's house. Drives to church, soccer games, and the mall. And there I was once again on the road behind the wheel. But this time was different. A certain someone wasn't in her seat. I had left her in a strange room two states away.

Okay, I'll admit it. It wasn't the first time I got a lump in my throat and had to reach for the Kleenex box. That happened plenty of times when my "baby" began to exercise small steps of independence. Her first babysitting job. Her first date. Her first job at camp that took her away from home all summer. But somehow that first year at college was the hardest by far.

I wasn't able to resist the urge to go into Kristin's bedroom and quietly contemplate why I missed her so much. She wasn't around for our regular family nights munching popcorn and watching family vacation videos. She was absent from our pew at church. I wasn't able to holler at her for tying up the phone line. I missed her availability to drive our middle daughter to youth group on Wednesday nights and to help our youngest daughter get dressed up for Halloween.

It's been four years since that tearful good-bye at Hope College, and my perspective as a father has changed. I am more convinced than ever how brief life is. Years blur. Time moves at bullet-train speed. Opportunities pass that can never be recaptured. Procrastinated plans form a pile of gnawing regrets. I understand why Moses asked God to coach him on how to number his days so that in turn he could run the human race wisely and finish with the fewest number of falls (see Psalm 90).

Thanks to the lessons I learned leaving my eldest in her college dorm room, I'm more intentional in how I seize passing opportunities with my other two. I'm determined to milk as many drops out of each day as I can. And though I haven't discovered a way to stop blinking, I'm focusing on what matters between each time my eyes shut and re-open.

Greg Asimakoupoulos is the father of three girls. He's a pastor, freelance writer, and author of eight books, including Heroic Faith and Draw Me Close to You. Greg and his wife, Wendy, live in Naperville, IL.

Copyright © 2005 by the author or Christianity Today International/Christian Parenting Today magazine.
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Fall 2005, Vol. 18, No. 1, Page 54