Precious Time

I was listening to a podcast this week and heard the term precious time. The phrase was described as a kinder, gentler alternative to the words actively dying, the medical idiom used to indicate the end of life is imminent. The physician who coined the phrase would tell families, “You are in the precious time now,” as their loved one was nearing death. I love the term precious time. What a beautiful way to sojourn a loved one from this world to the next.

When I think about precious time, I see it as a lovely descriptor for all life’s phases. When a young couple discover they are pregnant, it is precious time to dream, and plan, and anxiously await the miracle of life. Time doesn’t seem to move fast enough, but it’s still precious time.

Parents of newborns may be sleep-deprived and blurry-eyed, but meeting your new son or daughter, and learning to live as a family, is precious time. In this phase of life, time may seem to stand still, and you may wonder if you will ever sleep 8 hours again, and yet, it’s still precious time.

Toddlers, tantrums, the terrible-twos, and time-outs may seem anything but precious. Life can be hard when parents are trying to manage family, home, and work. The hours may pass at a snail’s pace, but the years fly by; it’s all precious time.

Homework, soccer, football, assemblies and bleacher butts, driver’s licenses, college applications, and before you know it, they are walking across the stage in a gown and mortar board, brandishing their newfound freedom in the form of a diploma. Your precious time raising that child flashes before your eyes and you wonder, “How did we get here so quickly?” What I wouldn’t give for more precious time.