Fleeting Moments

Another gorgeous afternoon.

Michael convinced his mom to come outside and play with him.

After spending some time at his sand table followed by drowning a few plants, Michael decided it was time to blow bubbles.

Around this time I came outside to be with them, and to soak up the warmth and fresh air I'd been missing for so many months.

Then Michael's Mommy began a new game: Catch The Bubble. She'd blow three or four bubbles and then quickly try to catch them with the bubble wand. Sometimes she succeeded, and the bubbles would suddenly combine with a wobbly shudder, merging a single, larger bubble.

Other times she wasn't so successful, and she'd miss the bubbles, or they'd pop before she could get to them. Sometimes Michael helped pop them, which made her move even faster.

Michael enjoyed his mother's frantic bubble-chasing kinetics so much he was almost constantly doubled over with the giggles.

I knew right at that instant that this laugh of his would one day be gone. He'd be older, he'd be more sober and in control. He'd be grown.

I had to capture his laugh, his expression of unbridled joy at the simple act of watching his mother jumping around catching bubbles. I knew I had only milliseconds to get the camera.

Rushing inside and grabbing the camera, I quickly turned it on and set it to record video.

When I returned to the scene, no more than seven seconds later, everything had changed. Michael was still popping the bubbles that his mom blew, but he wasn't laughing anymore, just smiling.

The moment had gone.

I took footage of him popping the bubbles he could reach and chasing the ones that flew too high. I snapped a couple of pictures of the bubbles that lingered near his face.

But I could not capture his laughter.

I'll remember it for a while... but as my memory of his infant cry has all but vanished, I know that someday my memory of his little-boy laugh will dim too.

Like the bubbles, moments like these are here for an instant and gone the next, and even if you have a thousand videos and pictures of them, the moments themselves they can't really be saved.

Just savored.