There was a gentleman who was at the climbing gym, maybe in his late 20s or early 30s. He stood in front of a video camera standing on a tripod and was talking into the camera. He was telling the camera how to tie a figure 8, how to put on a harness, how to belay, all the standard lessons to start top roping. He talked pretty lovingly into camera, ie. not like a professional video.

After he finished and was packing up, a young lady walked up to him and asked what the video was for (would’ve been cooler if it were me that did this, I know I know). Turns out the man had metastatic cancer (I think it was of the colon originally) and didn’t have long to live. He also had a newborn child. So he was going around making video tapes of all the things that “dads are supposed to do”: A video for every birthday, graduation, marriage. A video to teach his kid how to drive, how to dance, how to be a gentleman.

He was at the gym because he didn’t know what kind of sports his boy would like, so he decided to do a couple videos of every single athletic activity he could think of.

I was moved.