When it comes...

Every person, in every deed, seeks to fine something. For each individual, it varies, as well as with every task. For some to complete a marathon, may be a near life long training purpose. For others it may be to complete an education. Yet from the eyes of the watchers, some tasks may appear to be superior accomplishments, and some to be inferior. What is it then, that would drive us to attempt, and in most cases even achieve what others might tell us is impossible?

My first year in college, I was training to audition for the back up tour team. In my process I was told to not worry about it, not to get my hopes up, because I probably wouldn't make it. In the face of pessimism, I trained every day I possibly could. I would not be told that I could not become...and so I pushed on. The day of results came, and my name was posted as one who had made it. In the faces of those who thought me incapable, I simply smiled and said thank you.

All my life, through all my accomplishment, I have sought to please the two elements of highest regard to me...My heart, and my father. Impossible as it seemed to procure the approval of my father, I did everything I could. Unprecedented accomplishments in current careers, honorable return from a full time service mission of the LDS faith, and many other things that most people would not dream of doing. All these, in hopes to reach a median of pride I could offer my father...and to avail nothing.

For truly dreams and hopes come alive in the moments you think un-important. It came to me, at the least of all...concluding the final piece of music, on the closing night of our production, "Joseph and the amazing technicolor dream coat", I turned around to see MY FATHER, in tears. Leaving the Vatican, I rushed to his side to receive, in shock, a full embrace. One that I have never had before, not from my father. And the words he whispered in my ears, were the very words I had been aspiring to hear my whole life. "I am proud of you"

You are never quite sure what to expect as it happens. I thought of all things I could to give him reason to say those words to me, and have never heard them before. Every son wishes to hear those words from his father. How many of them ever really do? Finally, when it comes...your world crumbles and leaves behind the feeble structural integrity of that which held it in tact, and is instantaneously rebuilt in glory with a new integrity built with a sense of true accomplishment! It shall never fall again, a victim of doubt, but rather shall stand tall as a beacon of eternal prosperity.

We cried. We shared a moment that will never diminish. "You have done something bigger than I have ever done" he said to me... How does one weigh and account for a compliment like that? How does one see the value of a statement like that? How is it done, when it is a mere boy, looking into the eyes of his father when he receives those words from him...?

You shall never expect it when it comes...and therefore, you shall never forget it when it is said. An imprint across the heart of the highest magnitude, for those things can only be said and understood when done in the truest sense of love from father to son.