Time

Sometimes things just get complicated. Tonight, I began to realize that time is slipping away. Oh, I always knew it was, but it was a faint knowledge, almost a subconscious knowledge.  But tonight I was open to the message.  There are pictures of my children hanging on the wall in my living room.  My son is frozen in time as a nine-year-old hanging from a zip line.  My daughter is frozen as an angelic four-year-old sitting in a pine tree in my parents backyard while her uncle snaps her picture.  My children, forever young. 

This weekend, my nine-year-old son turns 22.  And later this year, my four-year-old daughter turns 27. Where does the time go?

Recently, at work, a new co-worker sent around a picture of his newborn daughter announcing her entrance to the world. I responded with a hearty congratulations and I told him to enjoy and cherish each moment.  I believe that every new parent has heard the admonition that the moments are precious and must be cherished.  My wife and I heard them. But looking back, I wonder if we paid attention.  Or perhaps, it is just the intervening years that have clouded the memories of those little children, those bundles of joy. The laughing, smiling children.

A memory is a crazy thing.  Tonight I sit here and want to remember all the fun moments from my kids' lives.  But if wishes came true I would re-live every moment, and really, who has that kind of time?  I must be satisfied with the knowledge that the lives they lived, the memories they made, are theirs and theirs alone.  The people they knew and interacted with have made them into the caring adults that they are today. 

And tonight, the only advice I can give to them is cherish each moment.  Be there.  BE THERE in your life.  Seize the day. Accept and enjoy every moment, be it good or bad.  Good moments are great, but even the bad times, the low times, the boring times, teach us things about ourselves if only we have the strength to look and to learn.