“Good morning yesterday. You wake up and time has slipped away.”
Time is our friend and our enemy all at once. It is said that it heals; that time flies; that time waits for no one; that with its passage, all resentments are appeased, all enmities forgotten.
I am not too sure about that. I know of people who have so embraced their old hurts and resentments that today their souls languish and fester in darkness and pain.
We are all familiar with the image of Father Time, an old man with a long white beard, dressed in a white robe, carrying a scythe and an hourglass. The scythe is for the harvest of souls and the hourglass represents time’s one-way movement, always forward.
The figure is traditionally shown on New Year’s Eve by editorial cartoonists who portray the bearded old man as the “old year,” turning over the world as it were, to the “Baby New Year.”
Time is the most precious and also the most perishable of all our possessions. Think about it.
“Every morning you are handed 24 golden hours. They are one of the few things in this world that you get free of charge. If you had all the money in the world, you couldn’t buy an extra hour. What will you do with this priceless treasure? Remember, you must use it, as it is given only once. Once wasted you cannot get it back.” (Anonymous)
Time is God-given, and therefore perfect. Our problem is that we don’t know what to do with it. Some of us complain that we don’t have enough. Others seem to have too much. We spend time thoughtlessly, and we squander it without any qualms as if we had our own private deep well from which we can draw at will.
Game over
What is it like when you run out of time? In school, we get the signal when it is done. Pencils up. Pass your papers. Will it be Pass or Fail? When the clock buzzes in the stadium, it’s “game over.” In life, it’s pretty much the same.
It may come as a surprise to many that time does not pick up speed. Every day, it is the same. There are no lost hours hanging out in space waiting to be found. And contrary to what the beautiful Sinatra song says, the days do not “grow short when you reach September.” The hours of sunrise and sunset may grow closer together with the change of the seasons, but there are still only 24 hours in each day.
Why are we stunned at the flight of time? Some of us worry so much about the end of our days that we never really begin to live them. What a waste.
I am certain that most of us have had moments, perhaps at a wedding or graduation, or even while blowing the candles on our birthday cake, when it suddenly dawns upon us that time has flown.
My songwriter-daughter shares: “When I look at my children, it hits me. My eldest is engaged. I thought she was still coloring books.”
My second son admits: “When you go from doing Pepsi commercials to adult milk and calcium, you know. When Barry Manilow sounds loud; when I see my sons, I can’t help wondering what happened to the time.”
My second-born says: “I see my children all grown up and ready for life. The apron strings are getting loose but I try to hang on.”
At whatever age, we vividly recall how it used to be, and what were we like “way back then.”
My classmates and I find it hard to believe that from those carefree years in a strict German-run convent school, we have become grandmothers and great-grandmothers. Some of our lives played out like telenovelas. I know that it didn’t “just happen.” Not overnight. Looking back, it does not seem that long ago. Then I look again, and yes, it has been a lifetime.
Where has the time gone? Is there a hole somewhere in space where time hides? We know there isn’t. But some of us live as though such a place exists and we entertain hopes of maybe one day traveling there to recover some of it.
‘Tempus fugit’
Banish the thought, friends. Time marches on. It does not go to a convenient “drop here” folder on your desktop, there to be reclaimed with a double click. Tempus fugit. Where it goes, no one knows. And it never returns.
Even as I catch a glimpse of the brightness that shines beyond my twilight years, it staggers me to face the fact that my eldest son will soon celebrate another birthday and enter that select group known as “the new 50s.”
Wasn’t it just a few years ago that he played with the figurines of cowboys and Indians among the pillows on his lolo’s bed? When he was five years old, he conducted an imaginary symphony orchestra playing “Die Fledermaus,” making his lola think that he would be into music like she was. In school, he earned silver stars on his report card and later proudly wore the green jersey as captain of his soccer team.
Not long after that, I broke his heart. From the other side of the globe, I wept as I watched him go through the peaks and valleys of his young life. I wished then that time would stand still. But it marched on without missing a beat.
Because there’s a good God in heaven, today my son is a great dad, and is slowly learning how to relish living in the world of grandparents. It was not an easy ride. There were many obstacles and potholes along the way. Today I am blessed, awed and grateful as he preaches the Word of God.
In my heart of hearts, when no one is looking, I feel an irresistible urge to reach out and give him a mommy hug. I am tempted to buy him more cowboys and Indians, stand with him on graduation day, and make up for every Christmas and birthday that I missed. But that’s in the past. It’s over. It’s under the blood, forgiven.
Can time lost ever be recovered? I think we all know the answer.