The story behind the picture perfect vacation…
3 days. Just us. Father and son. Together.
Discovering a world filled with mountain and snow.
Epic moments. Pure joy.
Sounds perfect? It’s not. It’s life. I find the story behind the scene more interesting than the story the perfect photos try to depict. It could’ve been a failed vacation, filled with frustration but it was not. Let me explain.
Friday morning. We are waiting in line. Rain falls on our head. The line seems to never end. There are 50,000 tourists in the area. They all want enjoy the snow falling at the top of the mountain. Half the mountain is closed because of high winds. We are all gathering here…all waiting in line. The frustration of the crowd is palpable.
My son is exasperated. I am becoming exasperated. He starts talking about going back home. We just arrived. I totally understand… We are waiting in the freezing rain.
I take a deep breath. I recognize this feeling, this moment. I have to make a choice. I see an opportunity. Maybe this situation can be useful and i can teach my son something…
I kneel down. I look at Liam in the eye. I tell him that i understand his irritation. I feel the same thing.
I explain that when we travel and in life, we rarely get what we want. And sometimes, like today, it’s frustrating. We have no control on the rain and on the waiting times but we have control on our reaction. I prefer to see the positive. We are together in this wonderful place. We are here to ski and we will ski. We will wait and I see this as an opportunity to practice a skill that is lost in the modern world: patience. We go to the chairlift line because in the rain, it’s the least popular. I offer: let’s just have a conversation while we wait instead of wallowing in our misery. So we wait and wait. Liam is silent. I know he is angry at me. I start talking with a francophone beside me. He a a local and gives me valuable advice about where to go when this crowd is invading the mountain. In 10 years, he has never seen wait lines as long as these.
An hour and a half and 3 chairlifts later, we arrive at the top of the mountain. My son wants to call his mother. He is proud because we did it. He talks about it like it’s an achievement, forgoes all the mongering. We ski together until the mountain closes. After this initial crazy moment, we never waited more than 15 minutes. At the end of the day, as we are enjoying a drink at the hotel restaurant, we talk about what happened and how we could’ve given into our frustrations and spend the day in our hotel room but instead, we consciously made the decision to be patient, grateful and to see the positive side of things. This opened the opportunity to make this a great day. I close the conversation with this comment “This is probably one of the greatest gift i can give you my son: the ability to see the positive and beauty in life. I love you.”
This could’ve been a failed vacation but it was not. We made it perfect because we used our freedom to choose a positive view of the world and practice a skill that is lost : patience.
Yesterday, he was patient, kind, grateful and unexpectedly positive. We were waiting in line at 6h40 AM to enjoy a breakfast at the summit before sunset and the privilege to do the “first tracks”. We took a quick break to have lunch and went back on the trails. At 14h30, i was ready to give up, tired but Liam asked for more. We closed the mountain. My son is officially a ski fanatic.
I feel blessed that we have a shared passion for an activity that we can do together. Getting here has taken a lot of time, patience and involvement with him. Today, i am proud of this achievement and i can enjoy it. I am so grateful for this.
Now that you know what happened behind the scene, i can say, honestly:
3 days. Just us. Father and son. Together.
Discovering a world filled with mountain and snow.
Epic moments. Pure joy.
Thank you.
Original post Facebook, January 2019
Martin Pham Dinh 