"The notification pops up on my phone: "Jason, we made a new memory reel for you." I pause whatever I'm doing, probably something stressful involving deadlines or dishes, and feel that familiar flutter of excitement. What chapter of my life has Google decided to surprise me with today? I tap the notification, and suddenly I'm watching years of Father's Day adventures unfold."
"It started accidentally-one Father's Day trip to the Buffalo Zoo that somehow became our tradition. Instead of buying me something I didn't really need, we chose experiences. Year after year, we'd visit a new aquarium or zoo. There's my son at age three at the Erie Zoo, barely tall enough to see over the penguin exhibit barrier. The same kid at five at the Baltimore Aquarium, tentative but overjoyed as he touched a stingray for the first time."
"Buffalo, Erie, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston. We'd mapped Father's Days across the Eastern Seaboard without ever planning it. So much time has passed since we started. My son has grown taller, lost teeth, found his voice. I've gotten balder, maybe a little softer around the edges. But there we are, year after year, choosing moments over things. We tell ourselves to create experiences instead of accumulating stuff, but just how important that choice is never really hits until you play it back. Here was the proof: a memory bank I didn't even realize we were building, one Father's Day adventure at a time."
A phone notification surfaces a memory reel of unplanned annual Father's Day trips to zoos and aquariums. The outings began with a spontaneous Buffalo Zoo visit and evolved into a tradition prioritizing experiences over objects. The son appears at different ages—three at the Erie Zoo, five touching a stingray, six noticing overhead cat tunnels—while the father notices changes in himself. The sequence of trips across the Eastern Seaboard accumulated into an unintended memory bank. Revisiting those moments produces waves of joy, bittersweet nostalgia, and gratitude, illustrating the enduring value of shared moments over possessions.
Read at Tiny Buddha
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