The Fifty Best Moments of My Life

I’m turning 50 soon.  So I thought it would be an interesting exercise to put together what I consider to be the top 50 moments or situations in my life – so far.  There is no rank here, no order and I’m sure you’ll strain to capture my train of thought that connects these events.  They take place over 5 decades.

1.     Marrying the love of my life - the smartest, brightest, toughest and prettiest lady I've ever known.

2.     Holding my newborn daughter, our first child, in my hands and realizing the incredible joy that lay ahead and the knowledge that everything was different now.

3.     Meeting my ‘new’ father for the first time when I was 5, and it was ‘all-official’.

4.     Listening to my son start singing at 2am in the blistering, blowing cold as we went for the summit together.

5.     Completing a half marathon and sprinting the final 200meters to break the two hour mark, my goal.

6.     While camping with my family, ‘trying’ some wolf calls from a canoe at night to hear them promptly answered by real wolves from shore 50 feet away.

7.     Viewing Jupiter’s moon’s and Saturn’s rings clearly with my own eyes through my telescope.

8.     Summiting Kilimanjaro with my son, best friend and his son, watching the most sublime sunrise in the history of sunrises on the dawn of my 46^th birthday.

9.     Picking my family up at Kai Tak airport, after I’d already moved there for work, and seeing them again after weeks apart, my very tired wife balancing hordes of luggage and two little ones post her 21 hours inflight.

1.   Riding my bike along the pathway and roads at Lake Simcoe’s edge, enjoying a sunny summer’s day.

.  .  Seeing my daughter graduate three times, each more meaningful, each with a clearer vision of who she is.

1.     Helping my mom celebrate her 75^th birthday, the planning, the surprise and joy on her happy face.

1.   Watching my wife work and focus and struggle and succeed in her work, never giving up, always aiming for excellence.

1.   Cheering on my son as he scored four times in a game on the centre pitch, when playing an exhibition match during the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens.

1.     Balling like a baby on a Qantas flight, admittedly a little buzzed watching The English Patient, ashamed and not at the same time for the film's emotional impact and probably many times since on various flights and different films.  There's something a little special about crying in your airplane seat at an evocative film after a few glasses of champagne, 5-10 miles above the earth somewhere.

1.     A curious sense of pride and/or accomplishment when doing things that I was literally quit passive in.  For example I flew around the world one weekend, almost without stopovers when I was 22 just because I could (I worked for an airline). Bombay and Hong Kong for the first time and alone both scared me, but I seem to have survived.

1.    Playing 'hokey' (look it up) from school for week when nine years old, spending the week on the frozen lake I lived near, and playing with my dog. It never really occurred to me someone should notice or care.

1.    Swooning over a girl when I was 17, and in fact really didn't know the girl that well. Through a love-struck summer I somehow forgot to eat and lost almost 80 pounds.

1.     Finishing and understanding and enjoying some of the great astrophysics books by Sir Martin Rees and Stephen Hawking.

2.     Buying & driving around in my first dream car. It felt like I'd arrived.

2.    The feeling of accomplishment when my work goes well - when the client is very pleased and I know I've given it 150%. Recognition is nice, but when you hit a home-run, you know it.

2.   From a young age, on the last day of school, I started walking home from school taking some quality time to cover the 5 kms.  The sunshine, warmth and knowledge of 2 months off of school meant I never really touched the ground of those days.  I still get that feeling at the end of a work engagement.

2.    Years ago, after my son had done an exchange program, we hosted the exchange student for a month.  The three of us (My son, Me and the little French lad) went camping and rarely was I so proud and thankful for my own boy for his strength, and focus as it became clear to me what he could have been like.

2.     The realization I had of how lucky I am - my life took a fortuitous twist when I was 5, and I had literally no control over it.  If my life hadn't worked this way out based on events 45 years ago, then I'm not sure I'd even be writing this.  Thanks Dad.

2.   Proposing to, and actually marrying my bride was clear to me in hindsight.  I wasn't nervous (or at least that's not the memory) nor was I uncertain.  I knew then, just as I know now - this incredible lady and I should be together.  I've been as certain of few other things in my life.

2.   We lived in Hong Kong and during a period of about a year, I'd take the ferry across to work, and it coincided with my daughter's school schedule.  In fact, her school bus passed a walkway I went along in my 10-minute post-ferry walk to work.  There's a point where the roadway elevates to go overhead, and it coincides with a walkway above street level.  One day, her bus passed at exactly that spot where I was walking and she looked out.  I saw her, she saw me and we waved furiously, as if we hadn't seen one another for years.  The surprised recognition and elation lasted for days.

2.   I got my scuba certification when I was 47, and have had some incredible experiences underwater - awe inspiring, frightening and impactful in ways I'd never imagined.  I need another (expensive) hobby like a hole in the head but diving exposes me to unimaginable scenes and situations.

2.   We lived in Hong Kong around the time of its’ handover to China in the late 1990’s and I travelled extensively for work.  One day while traveling back to Hong Kong from Sydney, I was on Cathay Pacific and got an upgrade to First Class.  It became of those defining moments, it struck me halfway through the flight – “Is this it?, Is this as good as life gets…” I had a wonderful work role, and had the good luck to be able to enjoy many of the finer things in life.  Money wasn’t an issue, and I was on top of my job. But I was bored - I longed for challenge so gave up luxury for yet another move.

2.   I was under 10 and quite enamoured with little planes, tanks and ships I’d build myself from plastic model kits. I recall digging up the grass on an entire side of the house and making a fort in the dirt for my army of tanks and trucks – I’d created an empire.

3.   As a family I recall we’d play flashlight tag in the woods called Mossington’s at night near our house. It was scary in the dark, but good-scary to the then 6-7 year-old me.

3.      Killer.  A post dinner game of killer always made a meal better. Taught me how to subtly wink.

3.   When we weren’t playing tag or murderously winking at one another, we’d play Monopoly, and it taught me about business, playing fair and luck. Rule #1, always be the banker – you never know who you can trust.

3.   Any of the days spent watching my son’s back as we paddled though some wilderness lake or river looking for the next portage, and chatting the days away about everything and nothing.

3.   Doing family hikes in the stunning Westonbirt Arboretum, or hiking the hills in Hong Kong as a family - one kid on my shoulders, or exploring the woods in Northbrook. Being outside together always seems to work.

3.     At about the age of 23, popping open a bottle of champagne on a small island off of Fiji’s coast and wondering vaguely what the rest of the world was doing – enjoying but not really appreciating the freedom of youth, and airline staff travel.

3.   Observing the wreckage of the previous night in the woods while ‘camping’ with friends in a van beside a Muskoka resort. The trail of dropped beer bottles highlighting how (un)successful our drunken pitch-black walk through the woods had been.

 .    Watching my wife graduate with her B. Ed.  In the robes, receiving the scroll, I was so very proud of her and the accomplishment she’d realized.

3.    Any of the many, many times I've been reduced to tears laughing with Randy until my core hurt.

3.    Watching my 5 year old daughter tell my 3 year old son to try the food in front of him instead of making faces and pushing it away – “it’s not bad , it’s just different, you’ve had different before” – and watching him listen, get it, and dig in.

4.    Soon-to-be Constable John informing the nice police officer at the door that “No, we hadn’t heard any loud noises, or seen anything, but we’ll be watchful” in front of 25 sprawled, passed out, mostly bare party guests the morning after.  A story for the ages.

4.    Traveling with a lifelong friend, together back-packing around Europe in our early twenties, being a little tipsy and lost in the wee hours of our first morning in Athens.  Finding a hotel with an English TV show we recognized – Knight Rider – and hearing the character say: “I don’t know Kit, it’s all Greek to me”. I’m pretty sure we both wet ourselves laughing.

4.   Walking along the Pinellas trail, post a Blue Jay’s Spring Training game with our family, getting ice cream and enjoying the casualness of the day together.

4.    My Mother, sister, and I went to Algonquin when I was 7or so, it was probably my first time, and in those days, they dumped food garbage and the black bears came foraging every evening.  On our way out of the Park, we stopped by there at my urging no doubt, and alone together in my mother’s Firebird we watched for bears.  I recall seeing a huge bruin climb a hill beside us, not 5 feet from the car.  It made quite an impression.

 With my son, canoeing in Algonquin forty years later, we rounded a corner in a lovely wilderness lake and a large moose and her calf were just at water’s edge. We were no more than 100 feet away, and we kept quietly paddling while they bent their giant necks down and continued to eat the weeds in the water.  It was idyllic, calm and we felt quite lucky to be able to witness some of nature’s majesty.

2.     I had a chance to participate in an Outward Bound event about 15 years ago, thrust together with some work colleagues that I didn’t know well. My own balloon of self-awareness was popped, as I became clear about many things about myself that had always been murky, or ill-defined.  Team success has rarely been so clear.

3.     Working closely with my good friend and colleague Mark, when based in Hong Kong, we spent a weekend together in a southern Sydney off-site location re-imaging our organization’s value proposition. We created a new manifesto of success and culture.  It was a heady, empowering time exploring business concepts and ideas. They ultimately died on the vine but the exercise itself was as close to business nirvana as I've gotten.

4.     This moment lasted almost a month, but my (future) wife and I did a post university graduation tour of France. It featured a large number of highlights as I had the best lunch of my life (May 8^th, 1988), learned how to love coffee, experienced the oddest coincidence of my life, explored a fantastic country and fell further in love with my future bride. Vive la France!

5.     When I was about 20, I’d always loved big airplanes and got my first airline job at Wardair (RIP). My job was to assist folks arriving and departing in wheelchairs but it meant I had free passage anywhere in Toronto airport.  I recall running to the nearest gate where ‘we’ had a plane and plopping into the Captain’s seat in a 747-100 and starting to push buttons. A dream come true.

6.     Watching our kids grow up, where as an observer you see connections being made, from first steps to first leaps and then control and understanding.  There is no favorite age for me, rather the journey itself as development happens before your eyes is fascinating.

7.     Understanding in quite general terms how fortunate I am, by virtue of where and when I was born and to whom, the chances afforded me in life, and things that are really the luck of the draw- I do appreciate these things and try not to waste my exposure to everyday circumstances.  Clearly this isn’t a top 50 ‘event’ as such, however it colours how I live through all the other events beyond the top 50.

   This exercise has been a fascinating one and taken me a few weeks - something I recommend for each of us.