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WHOLE LIFE
Tuesday Feb. 17, 2015
Thirty-five years flew.
Not just a blink, but fast.
Cliché, seems like just yesterday.
For Krista, my daughter born this date that many years ago – her entire life.
I’m figuring that’s about 35% of her entire life eventually, but at this moment, it’s 100% of everything up to today, with so much yet to look forward to.
Looking back – their growing up, all those steps, stages and all those months and years – started as blank pages.
They’ve filled them all.
Not as I would.
As they would.
As they could.
As they should.
William Barclay wrote, “There are two great days in a person’s life – the way we are born and the day we discover why.”
When I read that I wondered – how could we not know why?
Which begs these:
Do I know why?
Do my daughters know why?
Does anyone?
Easy cute answers – because parents loved and planned, low infant mortality rates, great doctors and nurses, fertilized eggs do marvelous things …
Recent arrivals in my life of grandchildren have offered real-time flashbacks to early years of development. Teething, talking … toddlering, discussing braces, boyfriends and big ideas. Shooting hoops, shooting pool and shooting breeze.
Remembering memories of cute things they said, great laughs we had.
There is more to life than that infamous ketchup incident … but none funnier.
There is more to life than any old birthday but those awesome milestones of one, sixteen, eighteen are unforgettable. Except we forget.
We remember emotion. We remember those high points and low points, and not as much in between them.
And then, thirty-five years of living flowed …
Oh my.
Mark Kolke
column written/ published from Calgary, AB
morning walk: -7C/20F in the wee hours, overcast and snow-possibilities, eerie quiet – fantastic in the dark, we walked blocks and blocks of empty streets, Gusta had no idea what a great day it is/was/will always be, but I did. This walk, more than most mornings, was one of time travel …
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