Who is wise

Published 11:04 am Thursday, July 3, 2025

“Who is wise?  He who learns from every human being.” Pirkei Avot,“Chapters of the Fathers”

The meal was perfect; lamb and beef gyros for the guys, chicken gyros for the girls, paired with cheese fries and washed down (for me) with what had to be the coldest Modelo Especial in Oxford.  Volta never disappoints.  However, as good as the lunch was, the company was even better.

I had been looking forward to this day for some time.  One week earlier, our daughter Tate had made it home from Japan and now I found myself sitting across the table from G with both of our children at our sides.

Tate Lindow and Dan Dye perusing the shelves at Square Books in Oxford. I’ve learned so much from these two world travelers. Photo by Brad Dye

With Dan working in Oxford for the summer prior to starting graduate school in August, the midweek mini getaway made perfect sense.  Tate had planted the seed, saying that she wanted to see Dan and go to Square Books, and that’s all her book nerd parents needed to hear.

Visions of sipping coffee in my favorite bookstore ran through my mind Tuesday morning as I began loading the car; however, my thoughts soon shifted to what it was like to pack for a vacation when the kids were still kids.  Details of those beach trips, Disney World trips, and trips out west brought a smile to my face.

As I tucked the last of the bags into the back of the “Family Truckster,” I thought about how much less we had packed for this overnight trip, and then I found myself thinking about how fast the years had flown past.

I had the same “time-is-a-flying” thoughts over lunch as Tate updated us on exactly where in the world Jake was now in his second deployment, and as Dan filled us in on the state of Oxford for the summer, crowds, traffic, construction and the like.

How am I old enough to have a child that’s married and living in Japan, and a child that’s starting graduate school?  Weren’t G and I just in graduate school?  Wasn’t G just at Ole Miss for undergrad?  Wasn’t I just here cruising these streets in high school?

It’s funny how (and where) these thoughts about aging come to me.  It really came as no surprise that I had them while sitting in one of our favorite spots, in one of our favorite towns, with G and both our children, our little family reunited.

However, it seems that I’ve been running down memory lane a lot lately in random places.  Yesterday, while mowing, I found myself thinking about moving Dan into his apartment this fall.

That, in turn, got me thinking about moving him into his college dorm for the first time.  I still remember the tears as we stood in the dorm parking lot at Mississippi State, Dan, G and I in one big family hug, sobbing uncontrollably.

Last week, while having some lab work and scans run (getting older is such fun), I found myself, oddly enough, thinking about Tate’s first car.  I recalled showing her how to fill it with gas for the first time, and then a few years later watching her drive away headed back to Tuscaloosa after her first trip home from college.  I remembered the tears streaming down our faces as G and I hugged in the driveway and watched her round the turn on 13th Place headed back to Alabama.

In her book “Still Pictures: On Photography and Memory,” author Janet Malcolm writes that, “Most of what happens to us goes unremembered.”

Malcolm goes on to explain that “the events of our life are like photographic negatives.  The few that make it into the developing solution and become photographs are what we call memories.”

I left Volta with a smile on my face Tuesday, not because I had an amazing gyro, or even an amazing lunch.  Years from now, those facts will, no doubt, be in the “unremembered” category.

No, I left that day with a smile on my face because my family, a family with members now spread out across this vast world of ours, was together, if for only a time.  In Malcolm’s terms, we had developed a photograph, we had made a memory.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realize that there is much that I do not know, but I do know this.  While many of the most memorable moments of my life have occurred in amazing places, hiking in the Tetons or floating down the Snake River, none are more memorable or more special than a shared table with a reunited family.

In the Pirkei Avot, loosely translated as the “Ethics of the Fathers,” a question is posed by the Jewish Sages: “Who is wise?”

The answer, “He who learns from every human being,” has, since I first encountered it, been something that I have taken to heart.

Tuesday, as I sat listening to Tate discuss her (and Jake’s) experiences abroad in their first couple years of marriage and listening to Dan talk about his new town this summer, it hit me just how much I have to learn from my two children.

Tate has lived abroad in England and Japan and Dan has hiked across Spain on The Camino de Santiago and has lived for a time in the Mountain West, a lifelong dream of mine.  Both, before 30, have lived in more of and seen more of the world than I have at the mid-point of my life.

Their experiences in these places and the people whom they have encountered have shaped them.  They, as a result, have a wisdom far beyond what I had at their age.  We all have much to learn from our neighbors, if we will only take the time to listen.

Across the table Tuesday, I watched G’s smile as she sat listening (and learning).  Her smile confirmed what I already knew—there is no memory more special than time together as a family.  “Who is wise?” —he or she who realizes this and treasures every fleeting moment together.

Until next time, here’s to seeing you out there soaking up the moments, learning from your neighbors (and your children), and making memories with family and friends in our great outdoors (or even in our great Greek restaurants).