Many moms this September will carefully snap a photograph of their kids, backpack in hand, sporting new clothes for the first day of school. My friend Jan has a wonderful archival display in her kitchen of her children’s first day of school shots from grade one through to university. The first day of a new school year is a pretty big deal, but what about all those seemingly ordinary days on the farm or in town, that you wish you would have captured, if you had known your life would drastically change?

I am writing this in July on the way home from a professional speakers’ conference where I had to privilege to hear Chad Hymas’s story. Chad was crushed by a 2000-lb bail in an open tractor with faulty hydraulics that he had “just not gotten around to fixing.” He now impacts the lives of thousands sharing the reality of his life as a C-4 quadriplegic. Chad’s strong farm hands have withered to curled thin tools. He showed us the only picture from his archives, a single photo of his strong hands in a family shot that reminds him how quickly things can change.

At that same conference I received sad news that a wonderful, talented man who had worked alongside us for only a year, had just passed away from a second battle with cancer. This amazing cheerful fellow had landed at our farm to fulfill a dream of working with big farm equipment, and we welcomed his talent to envision, create and build things for the good on our operation. One of the first things I thought of was his family picture that graces the spot where he shared supper with us on a regular basis, and the 2009 harvest shots that are now priceless, as 2009 was his first and last harvest with us.

Why am I telling you these sad stories? Continue reading If I Had Known »