Tempus Fugit - Take a Quick Glance

The other evening Ailsa asked me whatever happened to those nights we used to spend reading together. For a couple of years when Ailsa and Jensen were maybe 8-14ish, we would spend sometimes even an hour reading together. We went through Most of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series, Alvin Maker series, and the Homecoming series. Some perhaps more than once. Her question sparked an extremely brief and poignant realization for me. It was a "moment." I'm not sure she noticed. But, I did.

This wasn't a casual rhetorical question. She sincerely asked it and I didn't answer. There were other things going on and the answer would take a long time and give rise to emotions inconvenient for the press of time and circumstance. She didn't ask this question in accusation or criticism. And I didn't take it that way. She asked it in melancholic reminiscing. Implicit was the query, "Are we ever going to do it again?" But, there was even more to her tone. There was a hint of innocence lost, of a glance back over the shoulder before getting on with the battle ahead. I think a partial, unwanted answer lay just beneath the surface of her consciousness that she was hoping to avoid and evade. Ailsa is growing up. Our family is growing up.

So here, now, is my answer: I don't know.

I faced this critical passage in life when I found myself in Italy only a week or two into the mission. This was my "You can never go home again" moment. I wasn't happy and couldn't help but reminisce. I had to come to my own realization that the future lies before us. (That sounds like a bombastic P.G. Wodehouse/Roderick Spode quote.)

I would like to ask someone whatever happened to endless warm sleepy hours basking (and baking) on the sand. (To the skin cancer scare bears out there: If I die of melanoma, it will be well worth it.)

Are we ever going to do it again? Probably only as a faint shadow of the once glorious past.

Are we ever going to go stay in that little apartment in Italy again? I hope so. Are we ever going to load up the family in the car and have a fun, vacation drive filled with hilarity, boredom, and some complaining and arguing again? I sure think so. But, only for a couple of years until you have your own family. Are we ever going to go for a family bike ride on the Jordan River Parkway again. Probably. And then all of our children will grow up. (Laney, more slowly than the others.) And life will change for us and for you. And you won't have to live in the past. But, occasionally you will want to take a glance back over your shoulder before getting on with the battle ahead.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that we spend 95% of the time thinking about the other 5%. But, it is the memory of that small delicious part of life that keeps us going and that we hold as a future goal.