​What If You Could Relive Life’s Most Precious Moments? How to Embrace the Power of Presence

Image by Ri Butov from Pixabay

I watched About Time this week, a 2013 romantic science fiction comedy-drama film written and directed by Richard Curtis, starring Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, and Bill Nighy. It’s about a young man who discovers he can travel through time, but only to past moments in his own life. He uses this gift to improve his love life, but soon learns that no matter how much you try to change things, the real beauty lies in appreciating the moments you have. It was an exquisite reminder to savor life as it is, with all its imperfections, and embrace every fleeting moment.

Towards the end of the movie, he uses his gift to go back for short visits and relive precious moments with a loved one who is dying. It was a beautiful way to grieve. I immediately thought, “If I could travel back in my own life, which moments would I want to relive?”

The first person that came to mind was my gran, who died almost four decades ago when I was only a young teen. My grandad also passed that year from a massive heart attack. He was there one minute, sitting in his armchair, gone the next. I think the shock of it led my gran to have a stroke in the weeks that followed, and she too was gone within a few months of my grandad’s passing.

I remember my gran well—she was a kind and generous person. We would visit her every Saturday, and she’d always try to get the pancakes made before we arrived, knowing we’d want to play with the mixture and make our own creations. But she always had fresh baking ready for us—it was a wonderful experience in a world that, at the time, felt a bit scarce.

Not long before my grandad passed, I remember one day she said to me in her Lanarkshire lilt, “Oh hen, I’m no’ long fur this world.” I think I responded with something like, “Oh, don’t say that, gran,” because they both seemed quite well and were enjoying life. When my grandad had his heart attack, they’d just come back from a wonderful holiday in Jersey, looking healthy and tanned.

I remember the last time I spoke to her clearly. We had driven overnight to our annual summer holiday destination, and as gran was prone to worry, I asked if I could phone her to let her know we’d arrived safely. I can still remember how that ten-pence piece felt in my hand as I pushed it into the phone booth. When she answered, I said, “Hi gran! We’ve arrived.” The next week, she had her stroke, and my dad had to drive home.

Oh, how I wish I could have one more conversation with her, just to fix the look and smell of her in my memory.

But then, in the movie, the main character discovers that if he traveled back further than the birth of his own kids, a minor alteration could mean a different sperm would meet the egg, and his kids wouldn’t be the same. Now that’s an interesting proposition. What if we could travel back through our lifetime, but going back before our kids were born could result in different children?

Now, don’t get me wrong—there are times when that idea feels sorely tempting—but my instant thought was, “A moment with gran that could risk coming back to different children? Nope.” I think I would spend my whole life grieving the children I’d lost while trying to get to know the new ones instead. Just nope.

But his father’s advice to live each day with all its tensions and challenges, then go back and relive the same day without changing anything, was priceless. Knowing how things play out takes away a lot of our fears. The tension arises when we don’t know how each challenge—no matter how minor—will unfold.

So when he relived his days, he did so from a much more present and relaxed place. Even when things went wrong for him or his loved ones, he built confidence that every moment had its place in the story of life.

One of our close family members is getting married next year, and I had just been sharing that about my own wedding day. I remember getting to the end of it and wishing I could relive it all the next day so I could really soak it in.

Even with my children going through school, I noticed that I was much more relaxed about one of them doing a seven-hour hike this week than I was this time last year when the teacher took the class on a similar feat. I was worried that their lack of experience with walking that kind of distance, combined with asthma challenges, would be risky. But I also wanted them to know they could do hard things, face challenges, and overcome them. This time around, I had much more confidence they could.

The question then arises: how can we live each day with the same trust and relaxed confidence that experience gives us? By the same token, I know it’s our early experiences that shape the fears wired into our nervous systems. Our ability to be present depends as much on confronting our own wiring—questioning whether the reality of a situation truly warrants our reaction—as it does on breathing deeply and noticing what is actually happening in front of us. It’s in that balance, between mindful awareness and confronting our automatic responses, that we can find a deeper sense of presence.

So, what if we could live each day with that same presence and ease, as though we could always go back and relive moments with a deeper awareness? Maybe we can’t travel through time, but we do have the power to choose how we show up in the present. Every challenge, every moment—whether it’s a small decision or a major life event—offers us a chance to be more mindful, more connected to what really matters. It’s easy to get caught in the rush of life, but the real magic lies in being fully present. So, my challenge to you is simple: today, take a moment to truly be here. Notice what’s happening right now, without judgment or fear, and embrace it as part of your story. Because in the end, that’s all we really have—the moments as they unfold... whether we try to resist them or surrender to them. The choice is ours.

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