Notes from the Past, Part One

The Scene: A small house on a dead-end street on a warm Saturday in August. It’s early afternoon. The air is warm outside, but cooler in the house. The home is quiet except for the occasional sounds that drift in from outside; sounds of distant traffic and the occasional chirping of birds.

My three small children are upstairs taking naps after a morning of cartoons and running errands to the Post Office, Outlet Store and “the Ducky Place”. I’ve given them lunch and I’m waiting while they rest, waiting for them to wake up.

I stand in the quiet of the living room in front of a large divided window, staring out past the old front porch to the postage stamp yard beyond. The sun is filtering through the leaves of the old maple tree making kaleidoscope patterns on the ground as an imperceptible breeze brushes by. Below the branches, two small swings drift lazily over patches of ground worn bare by little feet.

I can almost hear the laughter of little kids as I watch the swings tilt back and forth.

Standing there, I’m thinking about what a perfect moment in time this is, my kids safe upstairs: resting, well fed, and getting ready for the typical Saturday afternoon to come.

And as I’m taking all of this in I am suddenly seeing this as an old man, standing at this same window, in this same moment. It throws me. There is a strange mix of past, present and future, all happening at once. And I am looking back on this moment as if it was a distant memory. All of the sounds including the laughter are only echos of the past; echos of a time long ago. I linger as I wonder how it all went by so quickly...

Slowly, beds begin to creak above me, scampering feet come down the stairs, and then I’m back again...but I feel the distance that is approaching.

I’m left with thoughts of  an old man and feeling the threat of time, heavier with each approaching day. I’m left with the whispering that I’ve heard so many times since: “Enjoy this moment. It will never come again”.