Just Saying: A matter of timing

Without thinking too hard about it, he, in my mind’s eye, is always the 4-year-old grandkid who crawled into our bed on weekend visits to the Island. 

We pretended the covers were a cave. Max would burrow in, and after he was situated, I would growl like a wild beast and he would come bursting out to safety. I was a surprisingly good growler, so we repeated this set piece several times before we got up to begin the day. 

That kid is now going off to college in Connecticut. How is this possible?

I suppose it’s one of the oldest stories in the book, that grandkids seem to race through life with mind-blowing speed, not heeding the normal passage of time. The 4-year-old kid is now a laconic 6-plus-footer, with a lovely steady girlfriend, Lily, who is going to the same college. My days of growling will never come again. (Alas, my granddaughters never had the burrowing gene.)

In this graduation season, we have an excellent photograph of Max in his prom tux and Lily in her shiny gown. My wife, Jane, is getting in on the action by attending her fill-in-the-blank high school reunion in Ohio. I went to my 20th in Missouri.

Speaking of time, is it just me, but how is it possible that we’re almost done with June? The last month that seemed real was February because of the cold spells that seemed to slow time down a bit.

Before we know it, it will be in the angst-provoking holiday season, which to its credit races by faster every passing year.

And then we get February and cold spells and June seems two years away. And then Fourth of July is in the rear view mirror and it’s time to buy a Christmas tree.

I yearn for the days of my youth when summer vacation lasted an eternity. I would lie on my back in the front yard thinking big thoughts about the solar system and the universe and the notion of infinity, which I still can’t get my head around. 

Back then, a week was a long time, not like today when it feels like it’s three days and you have to focus on which day of the week it is.

Soon Max will be sitting in a college classroom straining to pay attention to a lecturer while thinking of Lily. Time will have all but stopped for him. 

I wonder if he remembers the mornings of my excellent growlings. Time will tell.