I’m an old coot; my children are grown out in the world, and every so often I find myself ruminating in my head, or looking through a stack of old pictures, wondering how that time with them could have passed so fast. It\u2019s the kind of wool gathering that brings one\u2019s mortality into sharp focus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This isn\u2019t something new for me, this ruminating; I did it at each passage in each of their lives: bringing them home from the hospital as a newborn \u2013 hearing their first utterance of Da Da \u2013 witnessing their first time sitting up, crawling, standing, walking, getting a tooth, off to school, teenage-hood, driver\u2019s license, high school graduation, college and on and on and on. And, through all of it, I was aghast at the warp speed that time uncoiled. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, \u201cBIG DEAL,\u201d you say, \u201cEveryone has encounters with, and surprise at, how fast time flies by, how fast life flies by. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, here\u2019s the big deal, if you have kids of your own, or you are an aunt or uncle, or just were able to watch neighborhood kids grow up, you get to see them in many variations: baby, toddler, kindergartner, teenager, young adult and off into the world for additional transformations. But they just get to see you (us) in an unvaried state \u2013 an adult. That\u2019s what we\u2019ve been all their lives. Even when the kids were little and I was in my 20\u2019s and 30\u2019s, I was the old man, their old man. Every father, mother, aunt, uncle, and neighbor is an oldster to them as well. If you’re 20, 30, 40 (which is young from an old coot perspective), that\u2019s old to a kid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019re lucky; we get to observe all their different \u201cperson-hoods\u201d as they grow up. Just look at a few old pictures and you will see what I mean. They really are different people as they move through the passages of life. It\u2019s sort of a rebirth, every few years. Their underlying traits show through, but they\u2019ve become new people with each passage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was lucky enough to co-parent six children and to know each of them as 10 different people; that\u2019s 60 people I have a history with. But they\u2019re stuck with just one of me \u2013 \u201cthe old man\u201d – figuratively back then, literally now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next time I\u2019m in the doctor\u2019s office and am asked if I know what month it is (and my answer is two months off) or whom the president is (and I say, Bill Clinton). I might get a pass since I at least knew the name of a month and the name of a president, but if I was asked how many children I had, and I said, \u201csixty,\u201d it would be the loony bin for me. I don\u2019t care; it\u2019s the truth. And, I have the pictures to prove it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n